/**~z* 


OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 


WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 


WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

BY  CAPTAIN  CHARLES  DE  CRESPIGNY 


"Only  the  dark,  where  the  path  breaks  off 
and  the  milestones  end." 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published,  March,  1916 


TO  THE 

WONDERFUL  EYES 
NEVER  FORGOTTEN 


21294B9 


PART  I 
THE  AWAKENING 


WHERE  THE  PATH 
BREAKS 

CHAPTER  I 

IN  dim  twilight  a  spark  of  life  glittered,  glinted 
like  a  bit  of  mica  catching  the  sun,  on  a  vast 
face  of  gray  cliff  above  a  dead  gray  sea.  There  was 
nothing  else  in  the  world  but  the  vastness  and  the 
grayness  of  the  cliff  and  the  sea,  till  the  spark  felt 
the  faint  thrill  of  warmth  which  gave  to  it  the  knowl- 
edge of  its  own  life.  "I  am  alive,"  the  whisper 
stirred,  far  down  in  the  depths  of  consciousness. 
Next  the  question  came,  "What  am  I?" 

At  first  just  that  infinitesimal  bright  glint  lived 
where  all  the  rest  was  dead,  or  creation  not  yet  begun. 
Then  slowly  the  answer  followed  the  question :  "  I 
am  I.  A  man.  I  was  a  man.  I  am  dead.  This 

3 


4  WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

is  the  twilight  between  worlds.  I  must  dream  back. 
I  must  know  myself  as  I  was.  Later  I  shall  wake 
and  know  what  I  am." 

The  soul  was  very  still,  tired  after  an  all-but-for- 
gotten struggle.  It  was  beginning  to  remember  that 
it  had  suffered  infinitely.  It  was  patient,  with  all 
the  patience  of  eternity  before  it.  There  was  no 
hurry.  Hurry  and  turmoil  seemed  strange  and  re- 
mote, part  of  some  outworn  experience.  Lying  still, 
it  passively  waited  for  the  dream  to  begin.  For  a 
moment — or  perhaps  years — there  remained  only  the 
gray  blankness  of  the  empty  world ;  but  the  spark  of 
life  grew  in  brightness  as  a  star  grows  to  visibility 
in  the  pallor  of  an  evening  sky.  Then,  suddenly, 
a  face  flashed  into  existence — a  girl's  face. 

"I  knew  her.  I  loved  her,"  the  soul  remembered 
with  a  thrill,  like  a  shooting  ray  of  the  star  that  was 
itself.  "Where*?  Who  was  she?  What  were  we 
to  each  other?" 

The  dream  began  to  take  on  definiteness.  The 
soul  groped  back  to  find  its  body  and  its  lost  place 
in  the  world.  Not  this  gray  limbo,  but  the  sad  and 


THE  AWAKENING  5 

happy,  the  glorious  and  terrible  world  whence  it  had 
somehow  passed. 

The  girl's  face  faded  away  for  an  instant,  and 
the  face  of  a  man  seemed  to  be  reflected  in  a  blurred 
mirror.  The  eyes  of  the  soul  looked  into  the  man's 
eyes  and  knew  them.  They  were  his  own.  He  was 
that  man,  or  had  been.  "What  a  dull  dog  you  are," 
he  heard  himself  say,  as  if  he  had  said  it  long  ago, 
said  it  often,  and  the  echo  had  followed  him  to  this 
twilit  place  beyond  death.  He  thought  the  face  was 
rather  like  a  dog's,  an  ugly  mongrel  dog's.  The 
girl  could  not  possibly  care  for  him !  Yet  some  one 
had  told  him  that  she  did  care,  and  that  she  would 
marry  him  if  he  asked.  "I  'm  her  mother.  I  ought 
to  know !"  As  he  heard  the  woman's  voice  speaking 
the  words,  he  saw  the  face  that  belonged  to  the  voice : 
the  face  of  a  pretty  woman,  young  looking  till  the 
girl  came  near.  .  .  .  The  girl  had  come  now !  The 
cream-and-rose  tints  of  her  youth  made  the  other 
face  old.  This  was  rather  pathetic.  He  remem- 
bered that  it  had  so  impressed  him  more  than  once. 
Yet  he  had  never  been  able  to  like  the  mother. 


6          WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

The  dream  was  growing  in  distinctness.  They 
three — he  and  the  girl  and  the  woman — were  in  a 
house.  It  was  a  beautiful  old  house,  in  the  country. 
Outside  it  was  black  and  white,  with  elaborate  pat- 
terns of  oak  on  plaster.  A  sheet  of  water  lay  so  near 
that  the  black  and  white  front  was  reflected  in  it, 
like  a  dream  within  a  dream.  The  calm  water  was 
asleep,  and  dreaming  the  house ;  and  some  great  dark 
trees  and  clumps  of  rhododendrons  were  dreaming 
also,  which  seemed  very  confusing,  and  made  him 
doubt  whether  there  were  any  such  soul  as  his,  or 
whether  after  all  he  were  only  the  spirit  of  the 
water  or  the  trees,  and  had  never  known  this  girl  who 
was  walking  with  the  ugly  man.  Yet  it  seemed  to 
be  the  ugly  man's  house,  and  he  knew  what  the  man 
was  thinking.  They  were  one  and  the  same,  at  all 
events  in  the  dream.  And  though  he  was  out  of 
doors  with  the  girl,  he  could  see  every  room  in  the 
house  as  plainly  as  he  could  see  the  lake  and  the 
trees  and  the  pink  rhododendrons.  He  seemed  to 
pass  through  each  room,  one  after  another,  because 
the  girl  was  extolling  the  charm  of  the  house,  and 


THE  AWAKENING  7 

his  mind  moved  here  and  there  following  her  words, 
picturing  her,  white  and  flower-like  against  a  dark 
oak  paneling,  or  old  brocade,  or  hanging  of  faded 
tapestry. 

Yes,  it  was  a  beautiful  house.  He  had  that  to 
offer  her,  and  money  too.  There  were  women  who 
would  take  him  because  of  what  he  had  to  give. 
And  there  was  something  else.  What  was  it?  Oh, 
a  title.  Not  much  of  a  title.  He  could  n't  be- 
lieve she  would  be  influenced  by  a  trifle  like  that. 
She  was  too  perfect,  too  wonderful.  A  great 
many  men  with  nobler  titles  and  more  money  must 
have  asked  her  to  marry  them,  or  they  would  ask 
her  in  future;  for  she  was  still  very  young.  So 
far  she  had  never  fallen  in  love.  She  had  told 
him  so. 

"Not  seriously  in  love,"  she  had  said,  half  laugh- 
ing, and  half  in  earnest.  "There  was  only  my  cousin. 
I  adored  him  when  I  was  child.  But  I  have  n't 
seen  him  since  I  was  sixteen.  And  now  I  'm  twenty- 
one.  He  was  most  awfully  good  looking,  and  I 
thought  he  was  a  knight  and  a  hero.  Perhaps  if 


8          WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

he  came  back  from  India  I  should  be  disappointed  in 
him." 

Queer  that  the  groping  soul  should  hold  an  echo 
of  these  chance  words  about  India,  though  there  was 
none  for  the  name  of  the  cousin,  nor  even  of  the 
girl  herself.  This  made  the  awakening  man  wonder 
again  if  the  girl  had  existed,  or  whether  she  lived 
only  in  his  dreams.  It  was  a  vaguely  sweet,  vaguely 
sad  dream,  which  seemed  to  have  ended  before  it  was 
fairly  begun,  with  a  very  sorrowful  ending  which  he 
could  n't  quite  recall  yet.  He  wished  to  go  on 
dreaming,  and  to  change  the  end  if  he  could. 

The  girl  and  her  mother  were  visiting  the  ugly 
man  at  the  old  black  and  white  house.  He — who- 
ever he  was — had  to  go  away.  He  was  begging  the 
girl  to  stop  until  he  came  back.  "If  I  do  come 
back,"  he  added.  "Your  mother  is  willing  to  stay 
if  you  are.  It  would  make  me  happy  to  think  of 
you  in  my  house,  and  if  anything  happens  to 
me  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  don't  speak  of  such  things!"  she  broke  in. 
"It 's  terrible  that  you  must  go." 


THE  AWAKENING  9 

This  was  very  kind  of  her,  because  it  was  not  rea- 
sonable that  she  could  really  care  much — such  a  girl 
— for  such  a  man,  who  had  never  been  able  to  inter- 
est her,  he  felt.  But  she  looked  at  him,  looked  up 
mistily  with  her  dear  eyes  of  smoke-blue.  There 
was  some  message  in  them,  behind  a  glaze  of  tears. 

Drowned  in  those  eyes,  he  heard  himself  stammer- 
ing out  things  he  had  not  thought  that  he  would 
ever  dare  to  say.  "If  you  could  marry  me  ...  I 
don't  suppose  you  could  .  .  .  but  if  .  .  ." 

Her  answer  did  not  come  into  the  dream.  Per- 
haps she  had  not  answered.  But  he  could  see  the 
ugly  man  holding  out  his  hands,  and  the  girl  putting 
her  hands  into  them.  He  could  see  her  looking  up 
at  him  again,  and  in  the  beautiful  eyes  there  was 
that  message  she  wanted  him  to  read.  There,  at 
that  place,  was  the  end  of  the  dream-picture ;  it  never 
went  further,  though  he  tried  over  and  over  to  carry 
it  on;  the  girl  looking  up,  a  tall  slender  shape  in 
white,  with  the  afternoon  sun  burnishing  her  hair, 
and  giving  to  it  the  color  of  a  copper  beech  tree  un- 
der which  she  stood.  He  knew  that  he  had  thought, 


10        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

"I  shall  never  forget  her  as  she  is  now,  not  even  when 
I 'm  dead."  He  had  kept  his  word.  He  was  dead; 
hovering  on  the  borderland  of  the  unknown:  and 
he  had  not  forgotten.  But  just  where  the  dream 
ended,  before  he  could  read  the  girl's  look  and  hear 
what  she  had  to  say,  her  mother  had  come  quickly 
out  of  the  house,  with  an  open  book  in  her  hand. 
That -seemed  to  be  the  reason  why  the  picture  broke. 

It  seemed  afterwards  too,  though  there  was  no 
clear  vision,  that  the  girl  was  willing  to  marry  him, 
just  barely  willing.  Her  mother  took  it  for  granted 
that  she  had  said  "yes"  when  he  asked  her,  and  the 
girl  let  it  go  as  if  it  were  true;  though  he  could  not 
be  sure  it  was  what  she  had  meant  when  she  looked 
up  with  the  strange  light  in  her  eyes,  and  tried  to 
speak.  He  would  have  given  years  of  the  future  he 
hoped  for  then,  to  have  been  sure,  without  any 
doubts. 

When  he  stammered  out  his  questions  he  had  not 
thought  of  anything  better  than  an  engagement,  to 
end  in  marriage  if  he  came  home  safely  after  the 
war.  .  The  war!  .  .  Dim  remembrance  of 


THE  AWAKENING  11 

hideous  suffering  suddenly  stirred  the  slow  current 
of  his  dream.  There  had  been  war.  That  was  how 
it  had  happened!  He  had  been  killed  in  battle. 
Or  else,  none  of  the  dream  was  true!  There  had 
been  no  such  man,  no  such  girl,  no  such  black  and 
white  house  reflected  in  a  crystal  lake.  This  was  a 
dream  of  things  that  had  never  been.  A  veil  of  un- 
reality began  to  fall  between  him  and  the  picture 
he  had  seen.  No,  it  could  n't  have  been  true  of  his 
life,  of  course,  because  the  dream  had  begun  again, 
and  was  carrying  him  on  to  a  wedding.  The  church 
in  the  village  ...  (he  knew  that  church  well,  and 
the  way  to  it  from  the  big  gates  and  the  little  gates ; 
the  long  way  and  the  short  cut)  .  .  .  The  girl,  and 
a  man  in  khaki  were  standing  together  .  .  .  the 
same  ugly  man,  uglier  than  ever  in  his  soldier 
clothes,  he  thought.  He  heard  the  words  which  a 
clergyman  in  a  white  surplice  was  reading  out  of 
the  prayer  book.  "To  have  and  to  hold,  till  death 
do  you  part."  And  he  saw  himself  putting  a  ring 
on  the  girl's  finger.  She  held  her  left  hand  out  to 
him — the  long,  slim  hand  he  used  to  think  must  be 


12         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

like  St.  Cecilia's,  because  of  the  genius  of  music  in 
its  finger  tips.  He  could  see  no  following  picture 
of  her  alone  with  him.  He  saw  himself  going  away, 
waving  good-by :  then  a  train  and  a  boat,  and  a  train 
again,  with  a  crowd  of  other  men,  all  soldiers. 

He  was  an  officer.  (He  had  left  the  army  before 
that  dream-time,  he  could  not  remember  why,  but 
it  had  something  to  do  with  money — and  with  the 
black  and  white  house:  and  he  had  offered  himself 
again  for  the  war.)  In  the  dream  he  rode  a  horse 
along  a  straight  sunlit  road,  with  poplars  on  either 
side  that  gave  no  shade.  There  were  days  of  march- 
ing in  furnace  heat.  Then  came  a  night  of  silver 
moonlight  reddened  by  fire;  a  village  burning. 
There  was  a  noise  as  of  hell  let  loose:  and  since  he 
had  been  dead  he  hated  noise.  It  was  the  one  un- 
bearable thing.  Hearing  noise  in  his  dream,  the  star 
which  was  his  soul  shattered  itself  into  a  thousand 
sparks,  each  spark  a  red-hot  nerve  of  pain.  All 
round  him  in  the  crowded  dream  there  was  fighting. 
Smoke  stung  his  eyelids.  He  breathed  it  in,  and 
choked.  His  horse  trampled  men  down.  Their 


THE  AWAKENING  13 

cries  were  in  his  ears.  Some  voice  he  knew  called  to 
him  for  help.  He  pulled  a  man  up  on  his  horse;  a 
friend,  he  thought  it  was,  some  one  he  cared  for. 
Now  the  horse  stopped,  reared,  and  fell.  By  and 
by  the  man  whose  soul  dreamed,  struggled  to  his 
feet,  dazed,  but  remembering  his  friend  dragged  him 
from  under  the  hurt  animal.  Helmets  glittered  in 
the  moonlight.  Eyes  glinted  red  in  the  copper  glare. 
He  fought  with  a  sword  and  kept  off  men  that 
pressed  on  him  and  his  friend,  trying  to  kill  them 
both.  A  stab  of  pain  shot  through  his  hand.  A 
bugle  sounded.  Men  were  running  away.  He 
thought  they  were  men  of  the  enemy;  a  stream  of 
helmets  going.  He  heard  his  own  voice  shout  an 
order,  but  before  it  could  be  obeyed  a  din  as  of 
mountains  rent  asunder  roared  his  voice  down.  His 
whole  being  was  swallowed  up  as  a  raindrop  is  swal- 
lowed in  a  cataract.  A  huge  round  shape  rushed 
towards  him,  black  against  moonlight  and  flame. 
Then  the  world  burst  and  tore  him  in  a  million  frag- 
ments. .  .  . 

His  soul  coming  back  to  knowledge  of  its  contin- 


14        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

uance  held  the  impression  that  this  rending  anguish 
of  death  had  been  long,  long  ago,  thousands  of  years 
ago  in  time :  and  that  he  was  now  or  soon  would  be 
waking  into  eternity.  The  breaking  of  the  dream 
and  the  pain  he  had  suffered  ought  not  to  seem  im- 
portant. It  ought  not  to  matter  to  a  disembodied 
spirit.  Yet  it  did  matter  terribly.  Most  of  all  did 
it  matter  that  the  girl  with  the  smoke-blue  eyes  and 
copper-beech  hair  had  been  swept  away  from  him 
forever.  She  was  somewhere  in  the  world  he  had 
left  behind.  He  did  not  even  know  her  name,  or 
whether  indeed  she  had  really  been  in  his  life. 
Henceforth  he  would  have  to  wander  through  space 
and  eternity  without  finding  her  again. 

The  man  groaned. 

"He  's  coming  round  at  last !"  a  woman's  voice 
said. 

The  voice  sounded  muffled,  and  far  off.  It 
sounded  harsh,  too.  It  was  not  a  sweet  voice,  and 
it  was  not  speaking  his  language.  Through  the 
gray  dimness  which  hung  over  him  like  a  cloud, 
trickled  this  impression.  He  wondered  why,  if  the 


THE  AWAKENING  15 

language  were  not  his,  he  should  understand  what 
the  voice  said. 

"G-erman,"  he  struggled  to  say,  and  succeeded 
with  pain  in  whispering  the  word. 

Somebody  laughed.  "He  knows  he 's  in  German 
hands!"  chuckled  the  same  voice. 

An  agony  of  regret  fell  upon  him  like  an  ice 
avalanche.  He  was  alive,  then,  whoever  he  was, 
and  there  had  never  been  a  girl  with  smoke-blue  eyes 
and  copper-beech  hair!  She  was  only  a  dream. 
That  must  be  so,  because  the  words  she  had  said  to 
him  were  all  gone  from  his  mind.  He  could  no 
longer  remember  anything  about  her  except  her  face 
— and  those  eyes.  Those  eyes !  His  interest  in  past 
and  present  abruptly  ceased.  He  let  himself  slide 
away  into  blank  oblivion. 


CHAPTER  II 

HOURS  or  years  later  he  waked  up  with  a  start, 
and  stared  at  the  light.  It  was  daylight, 
and  he  was  in  an  immense  room.  It  seemed  big 
enough  for  a  theater.  Perhaps  it  was  a  theater. 
The  walls  had  red  panels  painted  on  them,  and  on 
each  panel  one  or  two  cupids  danced  and  threw 
flowers:  repulsive,  stout  cupids.  The  ceiling  was 
very  far  up  above  his  eyes,  and  there  was  a  dome 
in  the  center.  From  this  dome  depended  a  huge 
crystal  chandelier  like  a  bulbous  stalactite.  There 
were  a  great  many  high  windows,  with  panes  here 
and  there  opened  for  ventilation.  The  windows  had 
no  curtains,  and  the  room  had  no  furniture  except 
beds — beds — endless  rows  of  beds,  surely  hundreds 
of  beds. 

He  lay  in  one  of  these.     All  were  occupied.     He 

could  see  heads  of  men  whose  bodies  looked  extraor- 

16 


THE  AWAKENING  17 

dinarily  flat.  On  some  of  the  heads  were  bandages. 
Others  were  shaved,  so  that  they  appeared  quite 
bald.  They  were  very  pale  heads  in  the  bleak,  gray- 
ish light  filtering  dimly  through  the  high  windows. 
A  number  of  bunks  were  hidden  by  screens.  He 
wished  dully  that  he  had  this  privacy,  but  his  nar- 
row bed  had  been  given  no  such  protection. 

A  man  was  slowly  walking  down  an  aisle  between 
rows  of  narrow  cots  all  exactly  alike.  Beside  the 
man,  who  had  a  remarkably  large  head  with  a  shock 
of  rough,  straw-colored  hair,  was  a  woman  dressed 
as  a  nurse.  The  newly  awakened  one  knew  she  was 
a  nurse,  though  she  was  not  dressed  in  the  costume 
familiar  to  him  in  some  vague  past.  There  were 
many  in  the  room  wearing  the  same  sort  of  cap 
and  apron  and  prim  gown  that  she  wore:  young 
women,  middle-aged  women,  old  women.  They 
had  kind  faces,  but  the  watcher  saw  no  beautiful 
ones.  Not  that  he  cared  for  that,  or  anything. 

He  had  not  been  awake  long  when  a  big  girl  came 
towards  him,  paused,  peered,  and  went  away  again. 
She  stopped  the  nurse  who  walked  with  the  shock- 


i8        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

headed  man,  and  spoke  to  her.  The  woman's  cap 
and  the  man's  tousled  hair  turned  from  the  direction 
they  had  been  taking,  and  approached  his  bed. 
They  bent  over  it,  and  he  gazed  up  stupidly  at  their 
faces.  The  shock-headed  man  had  a  beard  even 
lighter  than  his  hair.  He  smoothed  it  with  a  white, 
strong-looking  hand,  a  capable  hand,  the  hand  of  the 
born  surgeon.  The  woman  had  hard  features,  but 
soft  eyes,  wistful,  and  pathetic. 

"You  see,  he  is  getting  along  finely,"  she  said  to 
her  companion.  "I  think  we  shall  have  no  more 
trouble  with  him  now." 

The  man  in  bed  remembered  that  he  had  heard 
her  voice  before,  and  that  she  had  spoken  German 
then,  as  now.  He  did  not  wonder  this  time  why 
he  understood  what  she  said,  though  the  language 
was  not  his  own.  He  remembered  that  he  had 
learned  German  when  he  was  a  boy,  and  had  hated 
learning  it  because  of  the  verbs. 

"How  do  you  feel*?"  the  surgeon  enquired,  in 
English. 

The  man  in  bed  tried  to  answer.     His  voice  came 


THE  AWAKENING  19 

in  a  weak  whisper.  This  surprised  him,  and  made 
him  ashamed.  "Very — well,"  he  heard  himself 
say,  as  he  had  seemed  to  hear  himself  speak  in  the 
dream  which  was  gone  now,  far  away,  out  of  reach. 

"Good!"  said  the  surgeon.  "Can  you  tell  me 
your  name?" 

The  sick  man  thought  for  a  moment,  and  the  ques- 
tion went  echoing  through  his  brain  as  a  voice  call- 
ing one  who  is  absent  echoes  through  a  deserted 
house.  Knowledge  of  his  helplessness  brought  a 
sense  of  physical  disintegration,  as  if  the  marrow  of 
his  bones  was  melting. 

"Never  mind !"  the  shock-headed  surgeon  said,  in 
a  quiet,  reassuring  tone.  "It 's  all  right.  You  '11 
remember  by  and  by,  when  you  're  stronger.  Don't 
worry  about  yourself.  I  've  performed  an  operation 
on  you,  which  is  known  as  trepanning.  That  was 
some  days  ago.  It  has  been  a  success.  But  we  will 
let  you  rest  a  while  longer  before  we  bother  you 
with  questions.  The  only  thing  is,  the  sooner  we 
learn  your  name  the  sooner  we  can  take  steps  to  let 
your  people  hear  that  you  're  alive.  It 's  a  long 


20        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

time  since  you  were  wounded:  eight  months.  We 
could  n't  operate  on  your  head  till  now.  There  were 
too  many  other  things  to  mend  about  you!  Some- 
body must  be  anxious.  Go  to  sleep  again  when 
you  've  had  your  food,  and  perhaps  the  past  will  all 
come  back  to  your  mind.  But  if  it  does  n't,  don't 
make  an  effort.  That  will  do  you  harm." 

The  sick  man  expressed  his  thanks  with  the  faint 
ghost  of  a  smile.  When  the  nurse  had  fed  him  with 
warm  liquid,  which  he  drank  through  a  tube  without 
lifting  his  bandaged  head  from  the  pillow,  he  closed 
his  eyes  and  tried  to  find  his  way  into  the  dream 
again.  But  the  door  of  the  dream  was  shut.  He 
could  see  only  the  face  of  the  girl.  She  alone  re- 
mained to  him,  as  if  she  had  lingered  and  found  her- 
self locked  out  when  the  dream-door  shut.  She  had 
no  name,  and  he  had  none.  But  that  seemed  to  be 
of  little  importance.  It  was  easy  to  obey  the  sur- 
geon and  not  make  an  effort.  The  difficult  thing 
would  have  been  to  struggle  toward  any  end.  He 
felt  that  to  do  so  would  shatter  his  brain.  And  as 
he  was  very  sure  nobody  cared  what  had  become  of 


THE  AWAKENING  21 

him,  there  was  no  need.  Why  he  was  so  sure  of 
this,  he  could  not  tell.  But  something  inside  him, 
which  remembered  things  he  had  forgotten,  was  ab- 
solutely sure. 

How  long  his  lethargy  of  mind  and  body  lasted, 
he  did  not  know.  Days  faded  grayly  into  nights, 
and  nights  brightened  grayly  into  days.  Neither 
the  surgeon  nor  the  two  nurses  who  had  charge  of 
him  asked  further  questions.  He  took  no  real  in- 
terest in  anything  except  the  effort  to  find  his  way 
back  into  the  lost  dream,  which  he  could  never  do; 
and  sometimes  even  the  beloved  face  was  blotted 
out.  But  at  last,  the  objective  began  to  dominate 
the  subjective  in  the  man.  He  gave  a  little  thought 
to  his  surroundings.  He  noticed  his  neighbors  who 
occupied  the  beds  near  him,  and  listened  dully  when 
they  talked  to  the  nurses.  They  were  all  Germans. 
One  day  he  asked  the  nurse  with  the  patient  eyes, 
if  there  were  any  other  Englishmen  besides  himself 
in  her  charge.  And  as  he  spoke  the  word,  with 
confidence  which  he  could  not  analyze,  it  sent  a 
faint  thrill  through  his  veins,  a  sense  of  unity  with 


22         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

something.  "Englishmen!"  He  was  an  English- 
man. 

He  had  to  speak  in  German,  for  the  nurse  had  no 
other  language.  Oddly  enough,  it  seemed  easy  to 
make  her  understand. 

"We  had  four  Englishmen  with  you  when  you 
came,"  she  replied.  "They  are — gone  now." 

He  understood  that  they  were  dead,  and  that  she 
did  not  like  to  tell  him  so.  He  smiled  faintly,  but 
asked  no  more  questions  then. 

Next,  he  wanted  to  know  where  the  hospital  was, 
and  how  long  he  had  been  in  it. 

"You  are  in  Brussels,"  the  nurse  told  him.  "This 
used  to  be  a  restaurant.  All  the  hospitals  were  full. 
You  have  been  here  only  a  few  weeks,  but  we  had 
heard  of  you,  for  yours  was  a  wonderful  case. 
Many  doctors  have  talked  about  it.  Just  before 
your  operation,  you  came  to  us.  You  were  brought 
to  Herr  Doctor  Schwarz  for  that.  He  is  a  great 
man  for  the  brain.  You  were  lucky  to  have  him  to 
operate.  It  was  thought  you  might  be  an  officer, 
because  you  spoke  both  German  and  French,  when 


THE  AWAKENING  23 

you  did  n't  know  what  you  were  saying.  A  bit  of 
bone  pressed  on  the  brain.  Your  head  had  been 
hurt.  And  you  had  many  other  wounds,  which  an- 
other great  surgeon  had  cured,  when  every  one  else 
said  you  would  surely  die.  That  was  why  they 
waited  so  long  before  operating  on  your  brain. 
You  had  suffered  so  much  already.  You  had  to 
grow  strong  after  what  you  had  gone  through,  and 
get  over  the  nerve-shock,  which  was  worst  of  all." 

"Let  me  see,  how  long  did  Dr.  Schwarz  tell  me  it 
was,  before  they  operated*?"  he  asked. 

"Eight  months,"  the  nurse  answered  reluctantly, 
as  if  she  feared  to  excite  him,  yet  saw  no  real  reason 
why,  now  that  he  was  getting  well,  he  might  not 
hear  all  the  truth  about  himself.  Besides,  it  might 
help  him  to  remember  the  past.  She  knew  that 
Dr.  Schwarz  was  anxious  for  him  to  do  so  now.  He 
had  always  been  an  extremely  interesting  and  rather 
mysterious  "case,"  sent  from  a  distance  by  a  brother 
surgeon  to  Schwarz,  and  specially  recommended  to 
his  attention.  "Eight  months,"  the  woman  re- 
peated. "I  think  you  were  wounded  in  some  bat- 


24        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

tie  early  in  August.  We  have  the  record  that  came 
from  the  first  hospital  where  you  were.  Now  it  is 
the  15th  of  April." 

"Eight  months,"  the  man  counted  dreamily  with 
his  fingers.  "Why  don't  they  know  whether  or  not 
I  was  an  officer*?" 

"It  was  like  this,"  the  nurse  explained,  with  her 
stolid  yet  kindly  and  truthful  look;  "it  was  like 
this:  Your  cavalry  and  our  cavalry  fought. 
That  is  the  account  we  have,  though  it  is  not  very 
clear.  You  were  getting  the  better  of  us,  but  our 
artillery  came  up  and  our  Uhlans  were  ordered  to 
retreat.  When  they  were  safely  out  of  the  way, 
your  lancers  were  shelled.  I  think  they  were  cut  to 
pieces.  Nobody  on  either  side  could  get  at  the  dead 
and  wounded  for  days.  When  they  did  go  to  help 
the  living,  it  was  our  Germans  who  went.  Most 
of  the  English  were  killed.  You  and  the  others  who 
lived  (unless  a  few  escaped),  were  brought  to  a  hos- 
pital of  ours,  in  the  north  of  France.  Our  soldiers 
would  not  do  such  a  thing,  so  it  must  have  been 
prowling  people — thieves — who  stripped  off  your 


THE  AWAKENING  25 

clothes.  One  reason  why  our  doctors  thought  you 
might  be  an  officer,  even  before  you  spoke,  was  be- 
cause the  little  finger  of  your  left  hand  had  been 
partly  cut  off.  It  had  been  done  with  a  knife. 
That  seemed  as  if  you  must  have  worn  a  valuable 
ring,  so  tight  it  could  n't  be  got  off  in  a  hurry." 

"My  mother's  ring,"  muttered  the  man.  The 
words  spoke  themselves.  Again,  it  was  not  he  who 
remembered,  but  something  which  seemed  to  be  sep- 
arate and  independent,  hiding  inside  him,  though  not 
in  his  brain.  It  knew  all  about  him,  but  would  not 
give  up  the  secret.  Impishly,  it  threw  out  a  sop  of 
knowledge  now  and  then,  just  as  it  pleased.  The 
nurse  tried  to  encourage  this  Something  to  go  on, 
but  it  would  not  be  coaxed.  When  she  repeated  the 
conversation  to  Schwarz  afterwards,  however,  he 
said,  "That 's  encouraging.  Don't  press  him  too 
much.  Let  body  and  brain  recover  tone.  Then 
we  '11  try  more  suggestions.  It 's  the  most  interest- 
ing case  we  've  had.  What  is  it  to  me  that  he 's 
friend  or  enemy"?  Nothing.  He  's  a  man.  I  shall 
think  of  a  way  to  set  up  the  right  vibrations." 


26        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

The  way  he  thought  of  was  to  commandeer  a 
bundle  of  English  papers  which  had  been  passing 
from  hand  to  hand  in  Brussels.  These  papers  had 
been  smuggled  into  the  town  by  a  German  who  had 

* 

escaped  from  a  concentration  camp  in  England.  He 
was  a  doctor,  and  had  got  into  Belgium  through 
Holland.  Such  newspapers  as  he  had  were  very  old 
ones,  but  that  did  not  matter,  because  the  man  in 
whom  Schwarz,  the  surgeon,  was  interested  had  lost 
touch  with  the  world  since  a  day  soon  after  the 
breaking  out  of  war.  He  must  have  been  among  the 
first  troops  sent  over  from  England  to  France,  and 
rushed  straight  to  the  front. 

For  a  few  days  he  had  been  very  silent,  asking  no 
questions.  He  seemed  always  to  be  thinking.  By 
Schwarz's  orders  he  was  left  alone.  Then,  one 
morning,  he  was  surprised  by  the  news  that  he  was 
well  enough  to  sit  up.  When  he  had  been  propped 
with  pillows,  the  nurse  he  liked  best — the  one  with 
the  hard  features  and  soft  eyes — slipped  a  roll  of 
dilapidated  newspapers  under  the  listless  hands  that 
lay  on  the  turned-over  sheet. 


THE  AWAKENING  27 

"English,"  she  said,  and  saw  that  his  eyes  bright- 
ened. 

•  •••••• 

His  left  hand,  with  the  tell-tale  mutilated  finger, 
began  painfully  to  open  out  the  heavy  roll.  He 
could  not  help  much  with  the  other  hand,  for  his 
right  arm  had  been  so  injured  that  it  had  been 
strapped  to  his  side  for  weeks,  and  the  muscles  had 
withered.  They  would  recover  tone,  and  the  arm 
its  strength,  Schwarz  prophesied,  but  he  was  only 
just  beginning  again  to  use  his  right  hand. 

This  was  the  first  time  he  had  read  anything  ex- 
cept the  notices  posted  up  on  the  hospital  walls, 
which  forbade  loud  talking  and  other  offenses.  To 
see  the  Illustrated  London  News  and  the  Daily  Mail 
and  the  Chronicle,  dated  on  days  of  September,  made 
him  feel  more  than  ever  that  he  had  died,  and  come 
back  to  earth  on  sufferance  as  a  ghost.  For  him 
there  had  been  no  autumn  nor  winter.  The  world 
had  ended  on  a  hot  night  in  August.  There  had 
been  summer,  and  then  blackness.  Now  it  was 
spring. 


28        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

September  loth.  September  nth.  September 
13th. 

The  Illustrated  London  News  lay  on  top.  He 
laid  back  the  cover.  There  was  a  battle  scene  on 
the  first  page.  It  looked  vaguely  familiar.  Brit- 
ish lancers  and  helmeted  German  Uhlans  were  fight- 
ing furiously  together.  Apparently  it  was  night. 
The  background  was  lit  by  flames  from  a  burning 
village.  It  was  an  impressionist  effect,  well  pre- 
sented. The  man  felt  very  tired  and  old  as  he 
looked  at  the  picture.  Pains  throbbed  through  his 
head  and  body  and  limbs,  reminding  him  of  each 
wound  now  healed.  He  turned  over  the  page  and 
several  others.  Near  the  middle  of  the  paper  he 
opened  to  one  entirely  given  up  to  small  photo- 
graphs of  officers.  "Dead  on  the  Field  of  Honor," 
he  read.  Under  each  portrait  were  a  few  lines  of 
fine  print.  He  began  with  the  left-hand  side,  at 
the  top.  Faces  of  strangers.  Then  two  he  recog- 
nized, with  a  leap  of  the  heart.  One  had  been  an 
acquaintance,  one  an  old  friend.  Their  names 
rushed  back  to  him,  as  if  spoken  by  their  own  voices, 


THE  AWAKENING  29 

even  before  he  had  time  to  read.  Human  interests 
surged  round  him  as  he  lay,  every-day  interests  of 
life  as  he  had  laid  it  down.  "Dear  old  Charley 
Vance.  Dead!  And  Willoughby.  .  .  ." 

A  photograph  in  the  middle  of  the  page  seemed 
to  tear  itself  from  the  paper  and  jump  at  his  eyes. 
It  was  larger  than  the  others  grouped  round  it.  ... 
"Good  God!"  broke  from  his  lips. 

He  glanced  around,  startled.  He  was  afraid  that 
he  had  screamed  the  words.  But  evidently  he  had 
not  made  any  sound.  No  one  was  noticing  him. 
Most  of  the  men  near  by,  all  surgical  cases,  were 
resting  quietly.  Several  nurses  were  talking  at  a 
distance,  their  broad,  reliable  backs  turned  his  way. 

It  was  his  own  photograph  he  was  looking  at  ... 
the  face  of  the  ugly  man  he  had  seen  in  the  lost 
dream,  as  in  a  dim  mirror.  Underneath  was  a  name. 
He  would  know,  now — his  own  name,  and — the  rest. 
All  his  blood  seemed  to  pour  away  from  his  heart. 
A  queer  mist  swam  before  his  eyes.  He  tried  to 
wink  it  away,  but  could  not,  and  had  to  wait  till  it 
faded,  leaving  a  slow  shower  of  silver  sparks. 


30         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

"Killed  in  action,  on  the  night  of  August  i8th,  Sir 
John  Denin,  i6th  baronet,  Captain  — th  Lancers, 
aged  32.  See  paragraph  on  following  page." 

The  man  turned  the  leaf  over.  There  was  the 
paragraph. 

"Captain  Sir  John  Richard  Stuart  Denin,  killed 
in  the  fatal  night  fighting  near ,  where  his  regi- 
ment was  caught  by  the  enemy's  artillery  fire  in  a 
wood,  was  a  well-known  figure  in  the  world.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  on  the  death  of  his  uncle, 
Sir  Stuart  Denin,  from  whom  the  title  passed  to  him, 
the  unentailed  estates  were  left  by  will  to  a  distant 
cousin  and  favorite  of  the  late  baronet.  Sir  John 
was  advised  by  his  friends  to  contest  the  will,  but 
refused  to  do  so,  saying  his  uncle  had  every  right  to 
dispose  of  his  property  as  he  chose.  This  generosity 
was  considered  quixotic,  but  had  a  romantic  reward 
a  few  months  later  when  an  aunt  of  the  new  baro- 
net's mother  bequeathed  him  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful and  historic  of  the  ancient  black  and  white 
houses  in  Cheshire,  Gorston  Old  Hall,  and  half  a 
million  pounds.  On  receiving  this  windfall  of  for- 


THE  AWAKENING  31 

tune  which  was  entirely  unexpected,  it  will  be  re- 
called that  Sir  John  resigned  from  the  army,  he  be- 
ing at  the  time  a  first  lieutenant  in  the  — th  Lancers. 
Two  years  later,  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  he  at  . 
once  offered  his  services,  which  were  accepted,  and 
he  was  given  a  captaincy  in  his  old  regiment,  leav- 
ing for  the  front  with  the  first  of  our  Expeditionary 
Force,  and  he  was,  unhappily,  also  among  the  first 
to  fall.  On  the  day  of  his  departure  Sir  John  was 
quietly  married  at  his  own  village  church  in  Gorston, 
Cheshire,  to  Miss  Barbara  Fay  of  California,  U.S.A., 
who  is  thus  left  a  widow  without  having  been  a 
wife.  Everything  he  possessed,  including  Gorston 
Old  Hall,  passes  by  the  will  of  the  deceased  officer 
to  his  widow.  As  Miss  Fay,  Lady  Denin  was  con- 
sidered one  of  the  most  beautiful  American  girls  ever 
presented  to  their  Majesties,  she  having  made  her 
debut  at  an  early  court  in  the  spring  of  1913,  or  a 
little  over  a  year  before  her  wedding  and  widow- 
hood. The  mother  of  Lady  Denin,  though  married 
to  an  American  professor  of  Egyptology  who  died 
some  years  ago,  has  English  blood  in  her  veins;  and 


32         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

is  a  near  relative  of  Captain  Trevor  d'Arcy  of  the 
— th  Gurkhas,  now  on  the  way  to  France  with  his 
gallant  regiment.  Captain  d'Arcy's  photograph 
taken  with  his  men  at  the  time  of  the  Durbar,  ap- 
pears on  the  following  page,  also  that  of  the  newly 
widowed  Lady  Denin.  In  the  battle  where  Captain 
Sir  John  Denin  met  his  death,  he  greatly  distin- 
guished himself  by  gallant  conduct,  and  to  him 
would  have  been  due  a  signal  success  had  not  the 
German  artillery  rescued  the  defeated  Uhlans  and 
followed  up  their  flight  with  a  withering  fire.  Sir 
John  succeeded  in  saving  the  life  of  his  first  lieuten- 
ant, the  Honble.  Eric  Mantell,  who  was  one  of  the 
few  to  escape  this  massacre,  and  who  had  the  sad 
privilege  of  identifying  his  preserver's  mutilated 
body  on  the  battlefield.  Sir  Eric  had  recovered  suf- 
ficiently from  his  wounds  to  be  present  at  the  fun- 
eral, the  remains  of  the  dead  hero  having  after  some 
unavoidable  delay  been  brought  to  England  and 
buried  in  Gorston  churchyard.  Had  Sir  John  lived, 
it  is  said  that  he  would  have  been  recommended  for 
the  Victoria  Cross." 


THE  AWAKENING  33 

The  man  who  had  died  and  been  buried,  whose 
body  had  been  identified  by  his  friend  and  taken 
home,  fell  back  on  the  thin  hospital  pillow,  and 
closed  his  eyes.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  come  to  a  blank 
wall,  stumbled  against  it,  and  fallen.  Then,  sud- 
denly, he  realized  that  by  turning  over  a  page,  he 
could  see  her  face — the  face  of  his  wife. 


CHAPTER  III 

HE  turned  the  page,  but  for  a  moment  it  was 
a  blank,  blurred  surface,  as  if  everything  on 
it  had  been  blocked  out  by  order  of  the  censor.  He 
found  himself  counting  his  own  heart-beats,  and  it 
was  only  as  they  slowed  down  that  the  page  cleared, 
and  the  eyes  he  had  seen  in  the  lost  dream  looked 
up  at  him  from  the  paper. 

They  gave  him  back  himself.  A  thousand  details 
of  the  past  rushed  upon  him  in  a  galloping  army. 

"Lady  Denin,  widow  of  Captain  Sir  John  Denin," 
he  read.  "  She  is  shown  in  this  photograph  in  her 
presentation  dress,  as  Miss  Barbara  Fay." 

Barbara  had  disliked  the  photograph.  He  could 
see  it  now,  in  a  silver  frame  on  her  mother's  writ- 
ing desk,  in  the  drawing-room  of  the  little  furnished 
house  taken  for  the  season  in  London.  He  had  been 
shown  into  that  room  when  he  made  his  first  call. 

34 


THE  AWAKENING  35 

Mrs.  Fay  had  asked  him  to  come,  just  when  he  was 
wondering  how  to  get  the  invitation.  And  Mrs. 
Fay  had  given  him  one  of  those  photographs.  It 
occurred  to  him  that  she  must  also  have  given  one 
to  the  newspaper.  Barbara  would  not  have  wished 
it  to  be  published.  But  he  had  thought  it  beautiful, 
and  he  thought  it  more  than  ever  beautiful  now. 

His  wife — no,  his  widow!  That  was  what  the 
paper  said:  "Lady  Denin,  widow  of  Captain  Sir 
John  Denin."  What  would  she  do,  what  would  she 
say,  if  she  could  see  the  wreck  of  John  Denin,  in  a 
German  hospital  in  Belgium,  staring  hungrily  at  her 
picture? 

He  asked  himself  this,  and  answered  almost  with- 
out hesitation.  She  was  so  loyal,  so  fine,  that  she 
would  not  grudge  him  his  life.  She  would  even  try, 
perhaps,  to  think  she  was  glad  that  he  lived.  Yet 
she  could  not  in  her  secret  heart,  be  glad.  Such 
gladness  would  not  be  natural  to  human  nature. 
She  had  been  hurried  into  marrying  him,  partly  be- 
cause he  loved  her  and  was  going  away  to  fight, 
partly  because  her  mother  urged  it  as  the  best  solu- 


36        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

tion  of  her  difficulties.  Now,  all  things  Mrs.  Fay 
had  wanted  for  the  girl  were  hers  without  the  one 
drawback;  the  plain,  dull  fellow  who  had  to  be 
taken  with  them — the  fly  in  the  ointment,  the  pill  in 
the  jam.  Barbara  had  dearly  loved  the  old  black 
and  white  house.  She  had  said  so  a  dozen  times. 
She  had  never  once  said  that  she  loved  John  Benin. 
She  had  only  smiled  and  been  kind,  and  looked  at 
him  in  a  baffling  way,  with  that  mysterious  message 
in  her  eyes  which  he  had  been  too  stupid  to  read. 
Mrs.  Fay  had  loved  the  house  too,  and  the  whole 
place;  and  it  was  hard  to  believe  in  looking  back, 
that  she  had  not  loved  the  money,  and  the  idea  of  a 
title  for  her  beautiful  girl. 

John  Benin,  who  ought  to  have  died  and  had  not 
died,  asked  himself  what  was  now  the  next  best  thing 
to  do.  Also  he  asked  the  eyes  in  the  photograph, 
but  they  seemed  gently  to  evade  his  eyes,  just  as  they 
had  often  evaded  them  in  life. 

Next  on  the  page  to  Barbara's  picture  was  the  por- 
trait of  her  cousin,  Captain  d'Arcy,  of  whom  she  had 
spoken  more  than  once,  the  "hero  and  knight"  of  her 


THE  AWAKENING  37 

childhood.  He  looked  a  handsome  enough  fellow 
in  his  uniform,  though  hardly  of  the  "hero  and 
knight"  type.  He  was  too  full-fleshed  for  that:  a 
big,  low-browed,  thick-lipped  man  of  thirty-six  or 
seven,  who  would  think  a  great  deal  of  himself  and 
his  own  pleasure.  Evidently  he  had  changed  since 
the  days  when  he  was  the  ideal  hero  of  a  sixteen- 
year-old  girl.  Denin,  scarred  and  wrecked,  a  bit  of 
human  driftwood,  was  dimly  shocked  at  the  mean 
pleasure  had  in  this  thought.  Barbara — wife  or 
widow — was  unlikely  to  feel  her  old  love  rekindle 
at  sight  of  her  cousin,  and  Denin  was  glad — glad. 
Barbara  was  not  a  girl  to  fall  in  love  easily.  But,  if 
she  believed  herself  free,  she  might  some  day.  .  .  . 

A  spurt  of  fire  darting  up  his  spine  seemed  to  burn 
the  base  of  his  brain.  It  struck  him  almost  with 
horror  that  the  question  he  had  been  asking  a  few 
minutes  ago  had  answered  itself.  No  matter  how 
undesirable  he  might  be  as  a  husband,  he  must  for 
Barbara's  own  sake  force  the  fact  of  his  continued 
existence  upon  her. 

"As  soon  as  I  can  control  my  hand  enough  to 


38         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

hold  a  pencil,  I  '11  write  to  her — or  her  mother.  Or 
perhaps  I  '11  try  to  telegraph,  if  that 's  possible  from 
here,"  he  thought.  Poor  Barbara !  Poor  Mrs.  Fay ! 
It  would  be  a  blow  to  them,  and — yes,  by  Jove,  to 
Frank  Benin,  his  cousin.  Poor  Frank,  too!  He 
had  got  the  Benin  estates  and  the  money  which 
ought  to  have  gone  with  the  baronetcy,  and  then  by 
an  extra  stroke  of  luck  the  title  had  fallen  to  him, 
on  top  of  all  the  rest.  It  would  be  a  wrench  for  him 
to  give  it  up  after  more  than  eight  months  of  en- 
joyment. Then  there  was  that  pretty  American  girl, 
Miss  VanKortland,  to  whom  poor  old  Frank  had 
proposed  time  after  time.  All  his  money  and  the 
two  big  places  had  made  no  difference  to  her.  She 
had  plenty  of  money  of  her  own.  She  had  seemed 
to  like  Frank  Benin,  but  she  was  a  desperate  flirt 
and  had  always  said  that  if  she  ever  married  out  of 
her  own  country,  it  would  be  a  man  with  a  title. 
It  was  Kathryn  VanKortland  who  had  introduced 
Sir  John  Benin  to  Barbara  Fay  at  a  dance,  not  long 
after  Barbara's  presentation.  John  had  felt  grateful 
to  Kathryn  for  that,  and  indirectly  grateful  to  Frank 


THE  AWAKENING  39 

because  if  it  had  n't  been  for  him  he  would  not  have 
been  invited  to  Miss  VanKortland's  dance.  How 
strangely,  vividly,  yet  dreamily  those  days  and 
everything  that  had  happened  in  them  came  back 
to  him,  while  the  people  whose  faces  he  called  up 
thought  of  him  in  his  grave!  He  wondered  how 
it  was  that  Eric  Man  tell  had  escaped,  and  how  Eric 
came  to  believe  that  he  had  identified  John  Denin's 
body.  He  wondered  also  whether,  now  that  Frank 
Denin  was  "Sir  Frank,"  Kathryn  VanKortland  had 
changed  her  mind. 

"I  wish  I  could  make  the  title  over  to  Frank,"  the 
man  in  the  hospital  cot  said  to  himself.  "God 
knows  I  don't  value  it  for  myself,  and  I  don't  be- 
lieve Barbara  does.  But  it  can't  be.  And  there  's 
just  one  thing  to  be  done." 

There  seemed  to  the  weary  brain  of  the  invalid, 
however,  no  great  hurry  about  doing  the  one  thing. 
Barbara  was  certainly  not  grieving  for  him.  There 
was  no  one  else  to  care  very  much  except  some  of  the 
old  servants,  and  he  had  remembered  all  of  them  in 
his  will  before  going  to  the  front.  As  for  Frank,  in 


40         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

a  way  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  him  if  he  could 
secure  Kathyrn  before  the  news  came  bereaving  him 
of  the  baronetcy.  The  girl  could  not  leave  him  if 
they  were  married,  or  even  throw  him  over  with  de- 
cency if  they  were  engaged.  Besides,  Denin  wanted 
to  write  the  letter  himself.  He  would  not  trust  the 
task  to  one  of  the  nurses,  and  had  confided  to  no  one 
yet  the  fact  that  memory  of  his  past  had  come  back. 
He  was  only  just  beginning  to  use  his  right  hand 
for  a  few  minutes  at  a  time.  It  would  be  a  week  at 
the  least,  before  he  could  write  even  a  short  letter 
without  help. 

Two  days  went  by,  and  the  surgeon's  orders  to 
"let  him  alone,"  so  that  he  might  "come  round  of  his 
own  accord,"  were  still  observed.  Nobody  ques- 
tioned the  invalid  about  himself,  though  the  nurses 
said  to  each  other  that  he  had  "begun  to  think." 

On  the  third  day,  a  wounded  British  aviator  was 
brought  into  his  ward.  The  news  ran  about  like 
wildfire,  and  Denin  soon  learned  that  a  fellow  coun- 
tryman of  his  had  arrived.  The  aviator,  it  seemed, 
had  been  in  the  act  of  dropping  bombs  on  some  rail- 


THE  AWAKENING  41 

way  bridge  which  meant  the  cutting  of  important 
communications,  when  he  had  been  brought  down 
with  his  monoplane,  by  German  guns.  Both  his 
legs  were  broken,  but  otherwise  he  was  not  seriously 
hurt. 

Denin  enquired  of  a  nurse  who  the  man  was,  and 
heard  that  he  was  Flight  Commander  Walter  Sev- 
erne. 

The  sound  of  that  name  brought  a  faint  thrill. 
Denin  did  not  know  Walter  Severne,  but  he  had  met 
an  elder  brother  of  his,  who  was  one  of  the  first  and 
cleverest  military  airmen  of  England".  It  was  prob- 
able that  Walter  Severne  might  have  seen  John 
Denin  somewhere,  or  his  photograph — if  only  the 
photograph  in  that  copy  of  the  Illustrated  London 
News,  which  had  labeled  him  as  "dead  on  the  field 
of  honor."  If  his  scars  had  not  changed  him  past 
casual  recognition,  Severne  would  be  likely  to  know 
him  again,  and  it  occurred  to  Denin  that  to  be  iden- 
tified in  such  a  way  would  not  be  a  bad  thing.  Be- 
sides, if  the  aviator  had  not  been  away  from  Eng- 
land long,  he  might  possibly  have  news  to  give  of 


42         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

Barbara — and  Frank — and  Kathyrn  VanKortland. 

They  were  more  or  less  in  the  same  set,  in  the 
normal  days  of  peace  which  seemed  so  long  ago. 
He  asked  permission,  when  he  was  got  up  for  his 
hour  out  of  bed,  to  talk  to  the  wounded  Englishman, 
and  was  told  that  he  might  do  so,  provided  that  an 
English-speaking  nurse  was  near  enough  to  hear 
everything  they  said  to  each  other. 

Benin's  progress  along  the  ward  was  slow.  He 
had  not  been  an  invalid  eight  months  for  nothing, 
and  the  mending  of  his  splintered  bones  and  torn 
muscles  was  hardly  short  of  a  miracle,  as  surgeons 
and  nurses  reminded  him  frequently,  with  glee.  He 
moved  with  a  crutch,  and  one  foot  could  not  yet  be 
allowed  to  touch  ground,  though  Schwarz  gaily  as- 
sured him  that  some  fine  day  he  might  be  as  much 
of  a  man  as  ever  again,  thanks  to  his  enemies'  skill 
and  care.  Severne  had  been  told  that  an  English- 
man who  had  lost  his  memory  through  injuries  to  the 
head,  and  forgotten  his  own  name,  was  coming  to 
talk  to  him.  Lying  flat  on  his  back  with  both  legs 
in  plaster-of-Paris,  the  aviator  looked  up  expect- 


THE  AWAKENING  43 

antly;  but  no  light  of  recognition  shone  in  his  eyes 
when  the  tall  form  in  hospital  pajamas  hobbled  into 
his  range  of  vision. 

Benin  did  not  know  whether  to  be  relieved  or 
disappointed.  Certainly  he  was  not  surprised,  for 
he  had  asked  for  a  mirror  that  morning,  and  had 
studied  his  marred  face  during  a  long,  grim  moment. 
From  temple  to  jaw  on  the  left  side  it  was  scarred 
with  a  permanent  red  scar.  A  white  seam  where 
stitches  had  been,  ran  through  the  right  eyebrow.  A 
glancing  bit  of  shrapnel  had  cleft  his  square  chin 
precisely  in  the  center,  giving  a  queer  effect  as  of  a 
deep  dimple  which  had  not  been  there  before  August 
i8th;  and  his  thick  black  hair  was  threaded  with  gray 
at  both  temples. 

A  chair  was  given  to  him,  in  which  to  sit  by  the 
newcomer's  bedside.  Severne  was  very  young  and, 
it  seemed  to  Denin  in  contrast  with  that  new  vision 
of  himself,  as  beautiful  as  a  girl.  Warned  that  the 
other  man  had  lost  his  memory,  the  wounded  aviator 
was  pityingly  careful  not  to  ask  questions.  He 
talked  cheerfully  about  his  own  adventures,  and  said 


44        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

that  he  had  been  "at  home"  on  leave  only  a  week 
ago. 

"At  home!"  Benin  echoed.  "What  was  it  like 
— over  there*?" 

"Awfully  jolly,"  said  Severae.  "Not  that  they 
don't  care,  or  are  n't  thinking  about  us,  every  minute, 
night  and  day.  But  you  know  how  our  people  are. 
They  make  the  best  of  things;  they  have  their  own 
kind  of  humor — and  we  understand.  Fact  is,  I — 
went  over  to  get  married.  I  suppose — er — you 
never  knew  the  Lacy-Wilmots  of  Devonshire*? 
They're  neighbors  of  ours.  I  married  the  second 
daughter,  Evelyn.  I — we  had  two  days  together." 

"You  were  lucky,"  said  Benin. 

"Think  so*?  Well,  we  did  n't  look  at  it  like  that. 
I  wrote  to  her  this  morning.  Hope  she  '11  get  the 
letter." 

"Some  fellows  had  only  an  hour  or  two  with  their 
brides,  I  heard,"  Benin  said,  almost  apologetically. 

"That's  true,"  said  Severae.  "Jove!  There 
are  shoals  of  war  brides,  poor  girls,  and  as  brave 
as  they  make  'em,  every  one!" 


THE  AWAKENING  45 

"What  about — the  war  widows'?"  Benin  ven- 
tured, stumbling  slightly  over  the  words. 

"They  're  brave  too,  all  right.  But  I  expect  there 
are  some  broken  hearts.  Not  all,  though,  by  any 
means.  Damn  it,  no!  Lady  Denin,  for  instance. 
Did  you  ever  hear  of  her?  I  mean,  did  you  ever 
hear  of  John  Denin?  They  had  about  an  hour  of 
being  married  before  he  went  off  with  the  first  lot 
in  August,  poor  chap." 

"What  about  Denin?" 

"Oh,  you  did  n't  know  him,  then?  Why  should 
you?  I  did  n't  myself,  but  he  belonged  to  one  or 
two  clubs  with  my  brother  Bob.  I  may  have  seen 
him  myself.  Awfully  fine  chap.  Everybody  liked 
him,  though  he  was  close  as  a  clam — no  talker. 
Came  into  a  ripping  place  and  piles  of  oof  a  few 
years  ago.  Not  much  on  looks,  though  he  was  an 
Ai  sportsman  and  athlete.  Girls  thought  him  a  big 
catch.  I  've  heard  plenty  say  so.  Well,  he  married 
an  American  girl,  a  beauty,  the  day  he  left  for  the 
front,  and  about  a  fortnight  later  she  was  a  widow 
with  everything  he  had,  made  over  to  her.  That 


46         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

was  n't  much  above  eight  months  ago.  But  the  day 
Evie  and  I  were  tied  up,  the  first  of  last  week,  Lady 
Benin  married  her  cousin,  d'Arcy  of  the  — th  Gurk- 
has. Quick  work — what?  No  heart-break  there !" 

As  there  came  no  answer,  Severne  supposed  that 
his  visitor  felt  no  interest  in  this  bit  of  gossip  apropos 
of  war  widows.  He  glanced  up  from  his  hard,  flat 
pillow  at  the  other  man,  and  saw  what  he  took  for  a 
far-away  look  on  the  scarred  face.  To  change  the 
subject  to  one  more  congenial,  the  aviator  began  to 
chat  of  things  at  the  front;  but  almost  instantly  the 
English-speaking  nurse  intervened.  The  two  in- 
valids had  talked  long  enough.  Both  must  rest. 
They  could  see  each  other  again  next  day. 

Without  any  protest,  and  scarcely  saying  good- 
by,  Benin  dragged  himself  back  to  his  own  part  of 
the  ward.  "  'Nobody  home !'  The  poor  fellow 
looks  as  if  he  was  n't  all  there  yet."  Severne  ex- 
cused the  seeming  rudeness  of  the  nameless  one. 

Benin  had  not  had  his  full  hour  of  freedom  from 
bed,  but  he  declared  that  he  was  tired  and  that  his 
head  ached,  so  he  was  allowed  to  lie  down.  He 


THE  AWAKENING  47 

turned  his  face  to  the  wall,  and  appeared  to  sleep, 
but  never  had  he  been  more  vividly  awake. 

His  plan  had  fallen  into  ruin  with  one  bewilder- 
ing crash.  The  corner-stone  had  been  torn  out  from 
the  foundation.  His  duty — or  what  he  had  seen 
as  his  duty — was  changed.  After  all,  Barbara  had 
not  been  disappointed  in  her  cousin.  She  had  found 
him  her  "knight  and  her  hero"  as  of  old.  She  had 
loved  the  man  so  passionately  that  she  had  given  her- 
self to  him  after  only  eight  months  of  widowhood. 
If  he  had  heard  this  thing  of  a  woman  other  than 
Barbara,  Denin  would  have  been  revolted.  It 
could  only  have  looked  like  an  almost  defiant  ad- 
mission that  there  was  no  love  in  the  first  marriage 
— nothing  but  interest.  He  could  not,  would  not, 
however,  think  that  Barbara's  act  was  a  proof  of 
hardness.  Lying  on  his  bed,  with  his  face  to  the 
blank  white  wall,  he  began  to  make  desperate  ex- 
cuses for  the  girl. 

She  had  married  him  by  special  license  at  three 
days'  notice  eight  months  ago,  hurried  into  a  de- 
cision by  his  love,  and  perhaps  the  glamour  of  war's 


48        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

red  light.  Her  mother,  too,  had  given  her  no  peace 
until  she  made  up  her  mind.  For  the  hundredth 
time  he  assured  himself  of  that  fact.  And  as  for 
the  well-nigh  indecent  haste  of  the  second  wedding; 
why,  after  all,  was  it  so  much  worse  than  the  first*? 

Her  marriage  with  him,  John  Benin,  had  been  a 
marriage  only  in  name.  She  was  left  a  girl,  with 
no  memories  of  wifehood.  No  doubt  this  new  giv- 
ing of  herself  had  been  another  "war  wedding." 
Trevor  d'Arcy  in  his  picture  looked  like  a  man  who 
would  do  his  best  to  seize  whatever  he  wanted.  He 
had  of  course  been  going  away,  perhaps  after  be- 
ing wounded  and  nursed  by  Barbara.  It  would  be 
natural,  very  natural,  for  her  to  feel  that  she  would 
be  happier  when  d'Arcy  was  at  the  front,  if  they  be- 
longed to  each  other.  Denin  told  himself  savagely 
that  it  would  be  brutal  to  blame  the  girl.  She  had  a 
right  to  love  and  joy,  and  she  should  have  both,  un- 
spoiled. He  would  be  damned  sooner  than  snatch 
happiness  from  Barbara,  and  drag  her  through  the 
dust  of  shame,  a  woman  claimed  as  wife  by  two  men. 

"This  decides  things  for  me,  then,  forever  and 


THE  AWAKENING  49 

ever,"  he  thought,  a  strange  quietness  settling  down 
upon  him,  like  a  cloud  in  which  a  man  is  lost  on  a 
mountain-top.  "She  's  free  as  light.  John  Denin 
died  last  August  in  France." 


CHAPTER  IV 

BUT  the  man  in  the  German  hospital  did  not 
die.  He  could  not,  unless  he  put  an  end  to 
his  own  life,  and  to  do  that  had  always  seemed 
to  Denin  an  act  of  cowardice  and  weakness.  He  re- 
membered reading  as  a  boy,  how  Plato  said  that 
men  were  "prisoners  of  the  gods"  and  had  no  right 
to  run  away  from  fate.  For  some  reason  those 
words  had  made  a  deep  imprint  upon  his  mind  at 
the  time,  and  the  impression  remained.  His  soul 
dwelt  in  his  body  as  a  prisoner  of  the  gods,  a  pris- 
oner on  parole. 

Life — mere  physical  life — rose  again  in  his  veins 
as  the  days  went  on,  rose  in  a  strong  current,  as  the 
sap  rises  in  trees  when  winter  changes  to  spring. 
He  was  discharged  from  the  hospital  as  cured,  and 
interned  in  a  concentration  camp  in  Germany  not 
far  from  the  Dutch  frontier.  Though  he  had  given 

50 


THE  AWAKENING  51 

his  parole  to  the  gods,  he  would  not  give  it  to  the 
Germans.  He  meant  to  escape  some  day  if  he  could. 
He  limped  heavily,  and  had  not  got  back  the  full 
strength  of  his  once  shattered  right  hand,  so  there 
was  no  hope  of  returning  to  fight  under  a  new  name. 
Had  there  been  a  chance  of  that,  he  would  have 
wished  to  join  the  French  Foreign  Legion,  where  a 
man  can  be  of  use  as  a  soldier,  while  lost  to  the  world. 
As  it  was,  he  made  no  definite  plans,  but  set  about 
earning  money  in  order  not  to  be  penniless  if  the  day 
ever  came  when  he  could  snatch  at  freedom. 

He  had  always  had  a  marked  talent  for  quick 
character-sketches  and  a  bold  kind  of  portraiture. 
He  could  catch  a  likeness  in  a  moment.  With  char- 
coal he  dashed  off  caricatures  of  his  fellow  prisoners, 
on  the  whitewashed  wall  of  the  room  which  he 
shared  with  several  British  soldiers.  The  striking 
cleverness  of  the  sketcher  was  noticed  by  the  man 
in  charge  who  spoke  to  some  one  higher  in  authority ; 
and  officers  came  to  gaze  gravely  at  the  curious  works 
of  art.  Benin  had  rechristened  himself  by  this 
time  "John  Sanbourne."  Sanbourne  seemed  to  him 


52        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

an  appropriate  name  for  one  without  an  aim  in  life, 
and  as  for  "John,"  without  that  standby  he  would 
have  felt  like  a  man  who  has  thrown  away  his 
clothes.  Sanbourne's  charcoal  sketches,  therefore, 
began  to  be  talked  about;  and  officers  brought  him 
paper  and  colored  chalks,  bargaining  with  him  for 
a  few  German  war  notes,  to  take  their  portraits.  By 
the  end  of  May  he  had  saved  up  two  hundred  marks, 
accumulated  in  this  way,  charging  from  five  to 
twenty  marks  for  a  sketch,  according  to  size  and  de- 
tailed magnificence  of  uniform. 

Not  having  given  his  parole,  he  was  carefully 
watched  at  first,  but  as  time  went  on  his  lameness, 
his  exemplary  conduct,  and  air  of  stoical  resignation 
deceived  his  guards.  One  dark  night  he  slipped 
away,  contrived  to  pass  the  frontier,  bribed  a  Dutch 
fisherman  to  sell  him  clothing,  and  after  a  week  of 
starvation  and  hardship  limped  boldly  into  Rotter- 
dam. There  he  parted  with  the  remainder  of  his 
earnings  (save  a  few  marks)  for  a  third-class  ticket 
to  New  York,  trusting  to  luck  that  he  might  earn 
money  on  board  as  he  had  earned  money  in  camp, 


THE  AWAKENING  53 

enough  at  least  to  be  admitted  as  an  emigrant  into 
the  United  States.  Those  few  marks  which  he  kept, 
he  invested  in  artist's  materials,  and  on  shipboard 
soon  made  himself  something  of  a  celebrity  in  a  small 
way.  He  was  nicknamed  "the  steerage  Sargent," 
and  with  an  hour  or  two  of  work  every  day  put  to- 
gether nearly  sixty  American  dollars  during  the  voy- 
age. That  sum  satisfied  him.  He  refused  further 
commissions,  for  a  great  new  obsession  dominated 
his  whole  being,  preoccupying  every  thought.  Ab- 
sorbed in  it,  he  found  his  portrait-making  exasperat- 
ing work.  Something  within  him  that  he  did  not 
understand  but  was  forced  to  obey,  commanded  the 
writing  of  a  book — the  book,  not  of  his  life  or  of 
his  outside  experiences,  but  of  his  heart. 

He  had  no  idea  of  publishing  this  book  after  it 
was  written.  Indeed,  at  the  beginning,  such  an  idea 
would  have  been  abhorrent  to  him.  It  would  have 
been  much  like  profaning  a  sanctuary.  But  there 
were  thoughts  which  seemed  to  be  in  his  soul,  rather 
than  in  his  brain,  so  intimate  a  part  of  himself  were 
they;  and  these  thoughts  beat  with  strong  wings 


54        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

against  the  barrier  of  silence,  like  fierce  wild  birds 
against  the  bars  of  a  cage. 

So  ignorant  was  John  Benin  of  book-writing  that 
he  did  not  know  at  all  how  long  it  would  take  to  put 
on  paper  what  he  felt  he  had  to  give  forth.  He 
knew  only  that  he  must  say  what  was  in  him  to  say; 
and  every  moment  when  he  was  not  writing  he 
chafed  to  get  back  to  his  book  again.  Indeed,  it  was 
but  his  body  which  parted  from  the  manuscript  even 
when  he  ate,  or  walked,  or  slept.  His  real  self  was 
writing  on  and  on,  every  instant,  after  he  had  gone 
to  bed,  and  most  of  all,  while  he  dreamed.  The 
idea  for  the  book,  when  it  sprang  into  his  mind,  was 
full-grown  as  Minerva  born  from  the  brain  of  Jove. 
Denin  felt  as  if  he  were  a  sculptor  who  sees  his  statue 
buried  deep  in  a  marble  block,  and  has  but  to  hew 
away  the  stone  to  set  the  image  free.  He  got  up 
each  morning  at  dawn,  bathed,  dressed  hurriedly, 
and  worked  till  breakfast  time,  when  a  cup  of  tea 
and  a  piece  of  bread  were  all  he  wanted  or  felt  he 
had  time  to  take.  Then,  in  some  out-of-the-way,  un- 
comfortable corner  where  his  fellow  travelers  of  the 


THE  AWAKENING  55 

steerage  were  not  likely  to  interrupt  him,  he  wrote  on 
often  till  evening,  without  stopping  to  eat  at  noon. 
He  used  ship's  stationery  begged  from  the  second 
class,  sheets  off  his  own  drawing  pads,  and  small 
blank  books  that  happened  to  be  for  sale  in  the  won- 
derful collection  of  things  ships'  barbers  always  have. 
Sometimes  he  scribbled  fast  with  one  pencil  after 
another :  sometimes  he  scratched  painfully  along  with 
a  bad  pen.  But  nothing  mattered,  if  he  could  write. 
And  nothing  disturbed  him;  no  noise  of  yelling 
laughter,  no  shouting  game,  no  crying  of  babies,  nor 
blowing  of  bugles. 

"When  that  chap  's  got  his  nose  to  his  paper,  he 
wouldn't  hear  Gabriel's  trump,"  one  man  said  of 
him  to  another.  Everybody  asked  everybody  else 
what  he  was  doing  when  he  suddenly  stopped  his 
traffic  of  portraits;  but  nobody  dared  put  such  a 
question  to  him.  Some  people  guessed  that  he  was 
a  journalist  in  disguise,  who  had  been  in  the  war- 
zone,  and  was  working  against  time  to  get  his  expe- 
riences onto  paper  before  the  ship  docked  at  New 
York.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  did  not  occur  to 


56        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

Denin  to  wonder  when  he  should  finish  until,  sud- 
denly and  to  his  own  surprise,  the  strange  story  he 
had  been  writing — if.  it  could  be  called  a  story — 
came  to  its  inevitable  climax.  His  message  was  fin- 
ished. There  was  no  more  that  he  wished  to  say. 

This  was  at  twelve  o'clock  one  night,  and  the  next 
morning  at  six  the  ship  passed  the  Statue  of  Liberty. 

Denin  felt  dazed  among  his  fellow  emigrants,  all 
of  whom  were  of  a  different  class  in  life  from  his, 
and  all  of  whom  seemed  to  have  something  definite 
to  expect,  something  which  filled  them  with  excite- 
ment or  perhaps  hope,  making  them  talk  fast,  and 
laugh  as  the  immense  buildings  of  New  York  loomed 
picturesquely  out  of  the  silver  mist. 

"Othello's  occupation  's  gone,"  he  found  himself 
muttering  as  he  leaned  on  the  rail,  a  lonely  figure 
among  those  who  had  picked  up  friendships  on  the 
voyage.  He  realized  that  he  had  been  almost  happy 
while  he  was  writing  his  story.  Now  that  it  was 
finished  and  had  to  be  put  aside,  he  had  nothing  to 
look  forward  to.  He  was  indeed  sans  bourne. 

What  the  other  steerage  passengers  did  on  landing, 


THE  AWAKENING  57 

he  did  also.  Vaguely  it  appealed  to  his  sense  of 
humor  (which  had  slept  of  late)  that  he,  Sir  John 
Denin,  should  have  his  tongue  looked  at  and  ques- 
tions put  to  him  concerning  his  means,  character,  and 
purpose  in  coming  from  Europe  to  the  United  States. 
He  went  through  the  ordeal  with  good  nature,  and 
passed  doctors  and  inspectors  without  difficulty. 
When  he  was  free,  he  joined  a  couple  of  elderly  Bel- 
gians to  whom  he  had  talked  on  shipboard,  and  with 
them  set  forth  in  search  of  a  cheap  lodging-house, 
where  he  might  stay  until  he  made  up  his  mind  what 
work  he  was  fit  to  try  for,  and  do.  He  was  a  poor 
man  now,  <md  could  not  afford  to  live  in  idleness 
for  more  than  a  few  days.  He  realized  this,  also  that 
a  "job"  of  any  kind  was  hard  to  get,  and  doubly 
hard  for  him  since  he  was  not  trained  for  clerical 
work  or  strong  enough  at  the  moment  to  undertake 
manual  labor.  Still,  he  could  not  resist  the  intense 
desire  he  had  to  shut  himself  up  and  read  the  book 
which,  when  he  thought  of  it,  seemed  to  have  written 
itself.  He  had  always  gone  on  and  on,  never  stop- 
ping to  glance  back  or  correct;  and  he  had  a  queer 


58         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

feeling  that  the  story  would  be  a  revelation  to  him, 
that  help  and  comfort  and  strength  would  come  to 
him  from  its  pages. 

The  Belgians  remained  in  the  lodging-house  only 
long  enough  to  unpack  a  few  things.  They  then 
went  out  together  to  see  New  York,  and  visit  an 
agency  which  had  been  recommended  to  them.  But 
Denin  shut  himself  up  as  he  had  longed  impatiently 
to  do,  in  the  tiny  back  room  he  had  engaged,  on  the 
top  floor  of  a  dreary  house.  There  he  took  from  the 
cheap  bag  bought  in  Rotterdam — his  one  piece  of 
luggage — the  oddly  assorted  pages  of  manuscript 
which  made  up  a  thick  packet.  With  the  moment 
that  he  began  to  read,  the  stained  walls  and  the 
dirty  window  with  a  fire-escape  outside  vanished  as 
if  some  geni  had  rubbed  a  lamp. 

The  story  was  of  a  soldier  and  his  love  for  a  girl 
who  did  not  greatly  care  for  him.  She  married  him 
rather  than  send  him  away  empty-hearted  to  the 
front,  cold  with  disappointment,  when  it  was  in  her 
power  to  arm  him  with  happiness.  They  parted  on 
the  day  of  the  wedding.  The  soldier  went  to  France 


THE  AWAKENING  59 

and  was  killed  in  his  first  fight.  The  girl  grieved  be- 
cause it  had  not  been  possible  to  love  the  man  with 
her  whole  heart,  and  because  he  had  had  no  time  (so 
she  believed)  to  taste  the  joy  she  had  sacrificed  her- 
self to  give.  But  the  man,  going  into  battle  and 
afterwards  dying  on  the  battlefield,  was  divinely 
happy  and  content.  He  saw  clearly  that  his  love 
for  her  had  been  the  great  thing  in  his  life,  its  crown 
and  its  completion;  that  the  thought  of  her  as  his 
wife  was  worth  being  born  for;  that  it  made  death 
only  a  night  full  of  stars  with  a  promise  of  sunrise. 
The  story  did  not  end  with  the  ending  of  the  sol- 
dier's life.  The  part  before  his  death  was  no  more 
than  a  prelude.  The  real  story  was  of  the  power  of 
love  upon  the  spirit  of  a  man  after  his  passing,  and 
his  wish  that  the  adored  woman  left  behind  might 
know  the  vital  influence  of  a  few  hours'  happiness 
in  shaping  a  soul  to  face  eternity.  The  book  was 
supposed  to  be  written  in  the  first  person,  by  the  man, 
and  was  in  four  parts.  The  first  told  of  the  court- 
ship and  marrying;  the  second,  of  the  man's  going 
away  from  his  wife-of-an-hour,  to  the  front,  and  his 


60         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

fall  on  the  battlefield;  the  third  described  the  re- 
gret of  the  girl  that  she  had  not  been  able  to  give 
more,  and  her  resolve  to  atone  by  denying  herself 
love  if  it  came  to  her  in  future ;  the  fourth,  the  dead 
soldier's  attempt  to  make  her  feel  the  truth;  that  she 
was  free  of  obligation  because  those  few  last  hours 
had  been  a  gift  of  joy  never  to  be  taken  from  his 
soul. 

Benin  had  dashed  down  a  title  on  the  first  page  of 
his  manuscript  before  beginning  the  book.  There 
had  seemed  to  him  only  one  name  for  it :  "The  War 
Wedding."  Now  that  he  came  to  read  it  all  over, 
he  still  had  the  feeling  that  something  in  him  more 
powerful  than  himself  had  done  the  writing;  and 
suddenly  he  began  to  wish  intensely  that  Barbara 
might  see  the  testament  of  his  heart. 

He  wished  this  not  because  he  was  proud  of  his 
work,  or  thought  it  superlatively  good,  but  because 
he  hoped  that  it  might  comfort  her.  She  had  been 
strangely  reserved  with  him,  invariably  baffling,  al- 
most mysterious,  during  the  latter  half  of  their  ac- 
quaintance, yet  he  had  felt  that  he  knew  the  truth 


THE  AWAKENING  61 

of  her  nature,  deep  down  under  the  girlish  conceal- 
ments. He  had  believed  her  tender-hearted.  If  she 
had  not  been  so,  why  had  she  married  him1?  And 
he  thought  that  a  girl  of  her  strong  character  and  sen- 
sitive spirit  might  be  stabbed  with  remorse  some- 
times after  gathering  the  flower  of  happiness  for 
herself  so  near  a  new-made  grave.  He  could  not 
bear  to  think  that  Barbara  might  torture  her  con- 
science for  his  sake.  He  wanted  her  to  be  happy, 
wanted  it  more  than  anything  else  now.  Not  that 
he  was  naturally  a  marvel  of  unselfishness,  but  that 
he  loved  Barbara  Fay  better  than  he  had  ever  loved 
himself.  If  this  story  which  he  had  written — like, 
yet  unlike,  her  own  story — should  happen  to  fall  into 
Barbara's  hands,  she  might  find  consolation  through 
all  the  coming  years,  because  of  certain  thoughts 
from  the  man's  point  of  view,  thoughts  that  would 
almost  surely  be  new  to  her.  And  what  joy  for 
Denin,  even  lying  in  the  gulf  of  forgetfulness,  if  his 
hand  could  reach  out  from  the  shadows  to  give  her 
a  thornless  white  rose  of  peace! 

He  wondered  eagerly  if  he  could  find  a  publisher 


62         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

in  New  York — a  publisher  who  produced  books  in 
England  as  well  as  America — to  accept  his  manu- 
script. 

Now  that  the  wish  was  born,  it  seemed  too  good 
to  be  true  that  anything  could  come  of  it.  Still,  he 
determined  to  try,  and  try  at  once.  Full  of  excite- 
citement  he  went  out  into  a  noisy  street,  and  bought 
several  newspapers  and  magazines.  There  were  a 
number  of  publishers'  advertisements  in  them  all, 
some  with  familiar  names,  but  one  he  had  known 
ever  since  he  was  old  enough  to  read  books.  It  was 
a  name  of  importance  in  the  publishing  world,  but 
there  was  no  harm  in  aiming  high.  He  had  brought 
the  manuscript  out  with  him,  because  he  could  not 
bear  to  leave  it  alone  in  a  strange  house.  Now  he 
decided  to  take  the  parcel  to  the  publisher  himself. 
Nothing  would  have  induced  him  to  trust  it  to  the 
post. 


CHAPTER  V 

FOUR-THIRTY  in  the  afternoon  was  Ever- 
sedge  Sibley's  hour  for  leaving  his  office.  If 
he  had  cared  about  escaping  earlier  he  could  easily 
have  got  away,  for  since  his  father's  death  he  stood 
at  the  head  of  the  old  publishing  house;  but  to  him 
business  was  the  romance,  poetry,  and  adventure  of 
life.  He  passionately  loved  the  champ  and  roar  of 
the  printing-presses  as  many  people  love  a  Wagner 
opera.  There  were  never  two  days  alike.  Some- 
thing new  was  always  happening.  Yet  just  because 
he  was  young  for  his  "job,"  and  knew  that  he  was  a 
man  of  moods  and  temperament,  he  forced  himself 
to  be  bound  by  certain  rules.  One  of  these  rules 
was,  even  if  he  chose  to  linger  a  few  minutes  after 
four-thirty,  that  no  caller  need  hope  to  be  admitted. 
That  was  a  favorite  regulation  of  Sibley's.  It  made 
him  feel  that,  after  all,  he  was  very  methodical. 

63 


64         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

One  afternoon,  however,  he  did  a  worse  thing  than 
break  this  rule.  He  went  back  from  the  elevator, 
the  whole  length  of  the  corridor  to  the  outer  office, 
simply  to  enquire  about  a  man  he  had  met  at  the  lift 
door. 

They  almost  collided  as  the  man  was  stepping  out 
and  as  Sibley  was  about  to  step  in.  But  he  did  not 
step  in.  He  let  the  lift  shoot  down  without  him, 
while  he  paused  to  stare  after  the  man. 

"Strange-looking  customer!"  he  thought. 

Sibley  himself  was  a  particularly  immaculate  per- 
son. Being  somewhat  of  the  Latin  type,  black  eyed 
and  olive  skinned,  he  was  shamefacedly  afraid  of 
looking  picturesque.  He  dressed,  therefore,  as  pre- 
cisely as  a  fashion-plate.  The  man  who  had  got  out 
of  the  lift  might  have  bought  his  clothes  at  a  junk- 
shop,  and  a  foreign  junk-shop  at  that.  They  were  not 
clothes  a  gentleman  could  wear — yet  Sibley  received 
a  swift  impression  that  a  gentleman  was  wearing 
them  at  that  moment:  a  remarkably  tall  fellow,  so 
thin  that  his  bones  looked  somehow  too  big  for 
him. 


THE  AWAKENING  65 

He  walked  past  Sibley  with  no  more  than  a  glance, 
yet  it  was  partly  the  glance  which  impelled  Sibley 
to  stop  short  and  gaze  at  the  back  of  a  badly  made 
tweed  coat,  the  worst  sort  of  a  "reach-me-down" 
coat. 

The  quick  mind  of  the  publisher  was  addicted  to 
similes.  (He  had  once  written  a  book  himself,  un- 
der a  nom  de  guerre.  It  had  failed.)  The  thought 
sprang  to  his  mind  that  the  glance  was  like  the  sud- 
den opening  of  a  dingy  box,  which  let  out  a  flash 
of  secret  jewels. 

In  spite  of  his  shocking  clothes,  the  man  had  the 
air  and  bearing  of  a  soldier.  Sibley  noticed  this,  in 
criticizing  the  straight  back,  and  it  aroused  his  curios- 
ity more  than  ever  in  connection  with  the  scarred 
face. 

Any  one  who  got  out  at  the  tenth  floor  of  the 
Sibley  building  must  want  to  see  Eversedge  Sibley 
or  one  of  his  partners,  so  evidently  this  person  in- 
tended to  ask  for  some  member  of  the  firm.  He 
looked  the  last  man  on  earth  to  be  a  budding  author; 
yet  Eversedge  Sibley  had  caught  sight  of  a  paper- 


66         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

wrapped  roll  of  manuscript.  One  who  was  not  of 
the  publishing  or  editorial  world  might  have  mistaken 
it  for  something  else;  but  no  manuscript  would  dis- 
guise itself  from  eyes  so  trained  to  fear  and  avoid 
it. 

"Looks  more  like  a  heavy-weight  champion  in- 
valided after  a  desperate  scrap,  than  a  writer;  or 
like  Samson  betrayed  by  Delilah,"  thought  Sibley, 
rather  pleased  with  the  fancy. 

He  put  out  his  hand  to  touch  the  bell  for  the  lift 
to  come  up  again,  but  did  not  touch  it.  Instead,  he 
turned  and  walked  back  along  the  marble-walled  cor- 
ridor to  the  door  of  the  reception  room.  The  tall 
man  had  just  arrived  and  was  talking  to  a  wisp  of 
a  creature  facetiously  known  in  the  office  as  "the 
chucker  out." 

"Mr.  Sibley  has  gone,  sir,"  little  McNutt  was  in- 
sisting, with  dignity.  "He  does  n't  generally  receive 
strangers.  Mr.  Elliot  is  in,  though,  and  might  see 
you  if  you  could  wait — " 

As  he  spoke,  McNutt  caught  sight  of  his  "boss" 
at  the  door,  and  by  looking  up  a  pair  of  thick  gray 


THE  AWAKENING  67 

eyebrows,  he  made  a  distressful  signal  of  warning. 
It  would  be  awkward  for  Mr.  Sibley  to  be  trapped 
and  buttonholed  here,  just  as  he  had  been  officially 
described  as  out.  McNutt  could  not  remember  the 
boss  ever  coming  back  after  he  had  gone  for  the  day, 
and  appearing  in  the  publicity  of  the  reception  room. 
If  he  had  forgotten  something,  why  didn't  he  let 
himself  in  at  the  door  of  his  own  private  office,  which 
was  only  a  little  further  along  the  hall  *?  But,  there 
he  was,  and  must  be  protected. 

"Who  is  Mr.  Elliot?"  enquired  the  stranger. 

Eversedge  Sibley  spent  a  short  holiday  in  Eng- 
land every  summer,  and  knew  that  the  vilely 
dressed  man  had  the  accent  of  the  British  upper 
classes.  His  curiosity  grew  with  what  it  fed  on. 

"Mr.  Elliot  is  the  third  partner  in  the  firm,"  ex- 
plained McNutt,  to  whom  such  ignorance  appeared 
disgraceful. 

"Thank  you,  I  'd  rather  wait  until  to-morrow  and 
try  to  see  Mr.  Sibley  himself,"  said  Denin. 

"I  am  Mr.  Sibley,"  the  publisher  confessed,  on 
one  of  his  irresistible  impulses.  "I  've  just  come 


68         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

back  for  something  forgotten.  I  can  give  you  a  few 
minutes  if  you  like." 

The  man's  face  lit.  It  could  never  have  been  any- 
thing but  plain,  almost  ugly,  even  before  the  scars 
came;  yet  it  was  singularly  arresting.  "That 's  very 
good  of  you,"  he  said. 

Sibley  ushered  the  odd  visitor  into  his  own  pri- 
vate office,  but  before  he  could  even  be  invited  to  sit 
down,  Denin  got  to  his  errand. 

"You  must  have  thousands  of  manuscripts  sent  to 
you,"  he  began,  with  a  shyness  which  appealed  to 
Sibley.  "I — suppose  you  hardly  ever  read  one 
yourself?  You  have  men  under  you  to  do  that. 
But  I  felt  I  should  n't  be  satisfied  unless  I  could 
put  the — the  stuff  I  've  written  into  your  own  hands. 
Probably  all  amateurs  feel  like  that!" 

"Manuscripts  which  our  readers  pronounce  on  fav- 
orably I  always  go  through  myself  before  accepting 
them,"  Sibley  assured  his  visitor.  "But  of  course, 
there  are  a  good  many  that — er — they  don't  think 
worth  bothering  me  with." 

"There 's  no  reason  for  me  to  hope  that  mine  will 


THE  AWAKENING  69 

deserve  a  better  fate,"  Denin  said.  "All  the  same 
it  would — be  a  great  thing  for  me  if  you  should  bring 
it  out — publish  it  on  both  sides  of  the  water.  It 
is  n't  as  if  I  expected  money  for  my  work.  I  don't. 
I  should  n't  even  want  money.  On  the  contrary — " 

Sibley  cut  him  short  with  a  warning.  "We  're 
not  the  sort  of  publishers  who  print  books  that  au- 
thors have  to  bribe  us  to  put  on  the  market.  If  a 
book 's  worth  our  while  to  publish,  it 's  worth  our 
while  to  pay  for  it." 

Denin  laughed.  "I  was  n't  going  to  suggest  any 
arrangement  of  that  kind,"  he  apologized.  "I  'm 
too  poor  for  such  a  luxury.  I  've  just  come  to  New 
York,  third  class,  and  I  must  'hustle'  to  make  my 
living.  But  I  wrote  this  on  shipboard,  while  I  had 
the  time — " 

"You  wrote  a  whole  book  on  shipboard!"  ex- 
claimed Sibley. 

Denin  was  taken  aback  by  the  publisher's  surprise. 
"Well,  it  was  a  slow  boat — twelve  days.  And  my 
mind  was  full  of  this  story.  I  had  to  write  it.  I 
kept  at  it  night  and  day.  But  for  all  I  know  there 


70        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

may  n't  be  enough  to  make  a  book.  That  would  be 
a  bit  of  a  blow !  I  'm  as  ignorant  as  a  child  of  such 
things." 

"About  how  many  thousand  words  does  your 
manuscript  amount  to*?"  Sibley  asked,  glancing  at 
the  rather  thin  brown  packet  tied  with  a  string. 

"I  have  n't  the  remotest  idea !"  Denin  admitted. 
"It  did  n't  occur  to  me  to  count  words." 

"H'm !"  muttered  the  publisher.  "You  say  it 's 
a  story — a  novel1?" 

"It 's  a  sort  of  a  story,"  its  writer  explained.  "I 
may  as  well  mention — you  're  sure  to  guess  if  you 
glance  over  my  work — that  I  've  been  fighting  in 
France.  I  was  pretty  badly  knocked  out — some 
months  ago.  And  you  can  see  from  the  look  of  me 
that  I  can't  be  of  use  as  a  soldier  while  the  war  lasts, 
if  ever.  Otherwise  I  should  n't  be  in  New  York 
now.  One  does  n't  chuck  fighting  in  these  days  un- 
less one 's  unfit.  While  I  was  in  hospital,  I  got  to 
thinking  how  a  man  might  feel  in  certain  circum- 
stances— (not  like  my  own,  of  course;  but  one  im- 
agines things) — and — well,  the  idea  rather  took  hold 


THE  AWAKENING  71 

of  me.  Here  it  is.  I  don't  expect  you  to  read  the 
thing  yourself.  It 's  not  likely  that — " 

"I  promise  you  so  much,"  said  Sibley,  with  sup- 
pressed eagerness.  "I  will  read  it  myself  before 
handing  it  over  to  any  one  else." 

The  scarred  face  flushed;  and  again  came  that 
sudden  light  as  from  a  secret  glitter  of  jewels.  "I 
can't  thank  you  enough !"  Denin  almost  stammered. 

"Don't  thank  me  yet.  That  would  be  very  pre- 
mature!" Sibley  smiled  generously;  but  even  if  he 
had  wished  to  do  so,  he  could  n't  have  patronized  the 
fellow.  "You  must  n't  be  too  impatient.  I  'm  a 
busy  man,  you  know.  I  '11  have  a  go  at  your  manu- 
script as  soon  as  I  can,  but  you  must  n't  be  disap- 
pointed if  you  don't  hear  for  a  week  or  ten  days. 
By  the  way,  you  'd  better  give  me  a  card  with  your 
name  and  address." 

Denin  laughed  again,  a  singularly  pleasant  laugh, 
Sibley  thought  it.  "I  have  n't  such  a  thing  as  a 
card!  My  name  is — John  Sanbourne.  And  if  I 
may  have  a  scrap  of  paper,  I  '11  write  down  my  ad- 
dress. I  forgot  to  put  it  on  the  manuscript.  I 


72         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

may  n't  be  at  the  same  place  when  you  're  ready  to 
decide.  But  I  '11  tell  them  to  forward  the  letter, 
and  then  I  '11  call  on  you.  I  'd  rather  do  that  than 
let  the  story  go  through  the  post.  I  've  got — fond 
of  it  in  a  way — you  see !" 

Sibley  did  see.  And  the  man  being  what  he  was, 
the  fondness  struck  the  publisher  as  pathetic,  like  the 
love  of  Picciola  for  his  pale  prison-flower.  Reason 
told  Sibley  that  the  ten  or  twelve  days  work  of  an 
amateur  (one  who  had  lived  to  thirty  or  so,  without 
being  moved  to  write)  would  turn  out  mere  twaddle. 
Yet  instinct  contradicted  reason,  as  it  often  did  with 
Sibley.  He  had  a  strong  presentiment  that  he 
should  find  at  least  some  remarkable  points  in  the 
work  of  this  scarred  soldier,  whose  square-jawed 
face  seemed  to  the  secretly  romantic  mind  of  Sibley 
a  mask  of  hidden  passions. 

Only  a  few  times  since  he  became  head  of  the 
house  had  Eversedge  Sibley  consented  to  see  a  would- 
be  author  whose  fame  was  all  to  make.  The  few 
he  had  received  had  been  fascinating  young  women 
of  society  with  influence  among  his  friends,  famous 


THE  AWAKENING  73 

beauties,  or  noted  charmers;  but  he  had  never  taken 
so  deep  an  interest  in  one  of  them  as  in  the  poverty- 
stricken,  steerage  passenger.  He  went  as  far  as  the 
reception  room  in  showing  his  guest  out;  and  then 
instead  of  going  down  to  his  motor,  which  would 
be  waiting  for  him,  let  it  wait.  He  returned  to  his 
office,  and  looked  again  at  the  address  which  the  au- 
thor had  laid  on  his  parcel  of  manuscript. 

"John  Sanbourne !"  Eversedge  Sibley  said  to  him- 
self, aloud.  The  man's  face  was  as  sincere  as  it  was 
plain,  nevertheless  Sibley  was  somehow  sure  that  his 
real  name  was  not  Sanbourne.  He  was  sure  that 
the  inner  truth  of  the  man,  if  it  could  but  be  known, 
was  a  contradiction  of  the  rough  and  strange  out- 
side ;  and  he  wished  so  intensely  to  get  at  the  hidden 
inner  side  that  he  could  not  resist  opening  the  par- 
cel there  and  then. 

Never  had  Eversedge  Sibley  seen  such  a  manu- 
script. He  was  used  to  clearly  typed  pages  of  uni- 
form size,  as  easy  to  read  as  print.  This  was  writ- 
ten partly  with  pencil,  partly  with  pen  and  ink,  ap- 
parently three  or  four  different  kinds  of  pens,  each 


74        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

worse  than  the  other.  The  paper,  too,  consisted  of 
odds  and  ends.  The  whole  thing  suggested  poverty 
and  the  meager  condition  of  a  steerage  passenger. 
But  this  squalor,  which  in  most  circumstances  would 
have  caused  Sibley  to  fling  down  the  stuff  in  fastid- 
ious disgust,  sent  a  thrill  through  him.  No  ordinary 
man  with  ordinary  things  to  say  could  have  had  the 
courage  to  struggle  through  such  difficulties,  to  any 
desired  end.  The  longing  to  tell  this  story,  what- 
ever it  was,  must  have  been  strong  in  the  man's  soul 
as  the  urge  of  travail  in  the  body  of  a  woman. 

In  spite  of  the  mean  materials,  the  writing  was 
clear,  and  suggested — it  seemed  to  the  mood  of  Sibley 
— something  of  the  man's  strength  and  intense  re- 
serve. 

"  '  The  War  Wedding,'  "  he  read  at  the  top  of  the 
first  page.  "Heavens,  I  hope  it 's  not  going  to  be  in 
blank  verse !" 

It  was  not  in  blank  verse.  He  had  to  read  only 
the  first  lines  to  assure  himself  of  that. 

The  story  began  with  the  description  of  a  garden. 
It  was  simply  done,  but  it  painted  a  picture,  and — 


THE  AWAKENING  75 

praise  be  to  the  powers,  there  were  no  split  infinitives 
nor  gush  of  adjectives!  Eversedge  Sibley  saw  the 
garden.  He  was  the  man  who  walked  in  it,  and  met 
the  girl  who  came  down  the  stone  steps  between  the 
blue  borders  of  lavender.  The  story  became  his 
story.  For  an  hour  he  forgot  his  office,  his  waiting 
chauffeur,  and  everything  else  that  belonged  to  him. 

So  he  might  have  gone  on  forgetting,  if  Stephen 
Eversedge,  his  junior  partner  and  cousin,  had  not 
peeped  anxiously  in  at  the  door.  "They  said  you  'd 
gone  away  and  then  come  back.  I  thought  I  'd  just 
ask  if  anything  was  the  matter,"  he  excused  himself 
to  the  master  mind. 

"The  matter  is,  we  've  got  hold  of  the  most  won- 
derful human  document — good  God,  yes,  and  soul 
document! — that  any  house  in  this  country  or  any 
other  has  ever  published!"  The  words  burst  out 
from  Sibley  like  bullets  from  a  mitrailleuse. 


CHAPTER  VI 

DENIN  hardly  knew  what  to  think  of  the  tele- 
gram which  came  next  morning.  It  asked 
him  to  call  at  once  on  Mr.  Sibley ;  but  Benin,  warned 
that  the  manuscript  story  could  not  be  read  for  a 
week  or  more,  did  not  dream  that  the  publisher  had 
already  raced  through  it.  His  fear  was  that  a  mere 
glance  at  the  first  page  had  been  enough,  showing  the 
skilled  critic  that  the  work  lacked  literary  value;  or 
else  that  the  bulk  was  insufficient  to  make  a  book. 
Mr.  Sibley  might,  in  kindness,  wish  to  end  the  au- 
thor's suspense,  and  put  him  out  of  misery. 

When  the  message  arrived,  Denin  was  reading 
and  marking  newspaper  advertisements.  He  meant 
to  go  without  delay  to  several  places  of  business 
that  offered  more  or  less  suitable  work;  but  he  was 
ready  to  risk  missing  any  chance,  no  matter  how 

good,  when  the  fate  of  his  ewe  lamb  was  at  stake. 

76 


THE  AWAKENING  77 

He  was  too  despondent  at  the  thought  of  its  rejec- 
tion to  plan  placing  it  elsewhere,  but  he  could  not 
bear  to  lose  time  in  reclaiming  it. 

He  felt,  as  he  was  led  once  more  into  Sibley's 
private  office,  as  if  he  had  to  face  a  painful  opera- 
tion without  anesthetics,  so  sensitive  had  he  come  to 
be  on  the  subject  of  his  story — the  manuscript  of  his 
heart,  written  in  the  blood  of  his  sacrifice.  There 
lay  the  familiar  pages  on  the  desk,  all  ready,  he  did 
not  doubt,  to  be  wrapped  up  and  handed  back  to  him. 
He  had  so  schooled  himself  to  a  refusal  that  the  pub- 
lisher's first  words  made  his  head  swim.  He  could 
not  believe  that  he  heard  aright. 

"Well,  Mr.  Sanbourne,  I  congratulate  you !"  Sib- 
ley  said,  getting  up  from  his  desk-chair  and  holding 
out  a  cordial  hand.  "We  congratulate  ourselves 
on  the  chance  of  publishing  your  book." 

Denin  took  the  hand  held  out  .and  moved  it  up 
and  down  mechanically,  but  did  not  speak.  Fol- 
lowing the  publisher's  extreme  graciousness  his  si- 
lence might  have  seemed  boorish,  but  Sibley  knew 
how  to  interpret  it.  He  realized  that  the  other  was 


78         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

struck  dumb,  and  he  felt  a  thrill  of  romantic  de- 
light in  the  situation,  in  his  own  august  power 
to  confer  benefits.  He  was  not  conducting  him- 
self as  a  business  man  in  this  case,  but  he  knew 
by  sureness  of  instinct  that  the  strange  amateur 
would  take  no  mean  advantage  of  his  confessed 
enthusiasm. 

"We  think,"  he  went  on,  "that  you  have  written 
something  very  original  and  very  beautiful.  With- 
out being  sentimental,  it 's  full  of  that  kind  of  in- 
describable sentiment  which  goes  straight  to  the 
heart.  It  will  be  a  short  book,  only  about  fifty  thou- 
sand words,  or  even  less;  but  that  doesn't  matter, 
because  a  word  added  or  a  word  left  out  would  make 
a  false  note.  The  thing 's  an  inspiration.  You  've 
got  a  big  success  before  you.  You  ought  to  be  a 
happy  man,  Mr.  Sanbourne." 

"You  make  me  feel  as  if  I  were  in  a  dream,"  said 
Denin. 

"That 's  the  way  your  story  has  made  me  feel," 
said  Sibley.  "Really,  your  method  has  an  extra- 
ordinary effect.  Talking  of  dreams,  it 's  almost  as 


THE  AWAKENING  79 

if  you  'd  written  the  whole  story  in  some  strange, 
inspired  dream." 

"Perhaps  I  did  write  it  so,"  Benin  said,  more  as 
if  he  spoke  to  himself  than  to  another.  "I  had  no 
method — consciously.  The  story  just  came." 

"One  feels  that,  and  it 's  the  most  compelling  part 
of  its  charm,"  said  Sibley.  "Well,  now  I  've  paid 
you  your  due  of  appreciation.  Sit  down,  and  let  us 
talk  business." 

"Business*?"  Denin  echoed,  rather  stupidly.  But 
he  accepted  the  chair  his  host  offered,  and  Sibley  too 
sat  down. 

"Yes,  business,"  the  publisher  cheerily  repeated. 
"We  should  like  to  rush  the  book  out  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. It 's  too  late  to  have  it  set  up  and  given  to 
our  spring  travelers  to  take  round  and  show  to  the 
trade — which  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  ways  of 
advertising,  I  assure  you.  But  in  an  immense  coun- 
try like  America  that  means  months  of  traveling  be- 
fore a  book  appears.  Yours  has  a  specially  poignant 
interest  at  the  moment,  and  I  have  so  much  faith  in 
its  power  that  I  believe  it  can  advertise  itself.  Of 


8o         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

course  I  don't  mean  that  we  won't  give  it  big  pub- 
licity in  the  newspapers.  We  shall  spread  ourselves 
in  that  way,  and  spend  a  lot  of  money." 

"And  can  you  get  the  book  out  soon  in  England, 
too*?"  asked  Denin. 

"Oh,  yes.  We  '11  produce  here  and  there  simul- 
taneously, and  do  it  in  a  record  rush,  if  you  can 
promise  to  stay  on  the  spot  and  read  proofs." 

"I  '11  do  whatever  you  wish,"  said  Denin. 

"Now  about  the  question  of  money,"  Sibley  went 
on,  exquisitely  and  literaly  "enjoying  himself." 
"Some  people  call  me  hard  as  nails,  a  regular  skin- 
flint. And  so  I  am,  with  those  who  try  to  squeeze 
me.  I  don't  think  you  '11  have  any  such  complaint 
to  make.  Your  name  is  unknown,  but  I  believe  in 
your  book  and  I  want  to  be  generous  with  you. 
What  do  you  say  to  an  advance  payment  of  three 
thousand  dollars,  with  fifteen  per  cent,  royalty  for 
the  first  ten  thousand  sales,  and  twenty  per  cent, 
after  that?" 

"But,"  stammered  Denin,  astounded.  "I  told 
you  yesterday  I  didn't  want  payment.  That  was 


THE  AWAKENING  81 

true,  what  I  said  then.  It  would  seem  a  kind  of  sac- 
rilege to  take  money  for  such  a  book — a  book  I 
wrote  because  I  wanted  to — " 

"I  don't  see  that  at  all,"  Sibley  cut  in  dryly. 
"You  are  the  first  author  I — or  any  other  publisher, 
I  should  think — ever  had  to  urge  to  accept  hard 
cash.  But  you  're  probably  an  exception  to  a  good 
many  rules !  We  can't  take  your  book  as  a  present, 
you  know !  So  if  you  want  it  published  you  '11  have 
to  come  round  to  our  terms." 

"You  mean  that1?"  asked  Benin.  "You  won't 
bring  out  my  story  if  I  refuse  your  money?" 

"I  do  mean  that,  though  I  should  hate  to  sacri- 
fice the  book.  And  I  honestly  believe  that  many 
people  would  be  happier  for  reading  it." 

"Very  well  then,"  Benin  answered.  "I  '11  ac- 
cept the  money  and  thank  you  for  it.  I  want  my 
book  to  come  out,  more  than  I  want  anything  else 
— that — that  can  possibly  happen." 

To  a  man  who  had  lived  from  hand  to  mouth  as 
John  Sanbourne  had  since  Sir  John  Benin  died,  three 
thousand  dollars  seemed  something  like  a  fortune. 


82         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

He  had  lost  his  old  sense  of  proportion  in  life,  and 
had  almost  forgotten  how  it  felt  to  have  all  the 
money  he  wanted.  Perhaps  he  forgot  more  easily 
than  most  men  of  his  class,  for  he  had  never  cared 
greatly  for  the  things  which  money  alone  can  buy. 
His  tastes  had  always  seemed  to  his  friends  ridicu- 
lously simple,  so  simple  as  to  be  dangerously  near 
affectation;  and  as  a  small  boy  he  had  announced 
firmly  that  he  would  "rather  be  a  gardener  in  a  beau- 
tiful garden,  than  one  of  those  millionaires  who  have 
to  do  their  business  always  in  towns."  Now,  when 
he  had  recovered  from  the  first  shock  of  accepting 
money  for  the  book  of  his  heart,  he  began  to  reflect 
how  to  plan  his  life.  The  thought  that  he  could 
have  a  garden  was  a  real  incentive,  for  working  in 
a  garden  would  save  him  from  the  unending  desola- 
tion of  uselessness,  when  the  last  proofs  were  cor- 
rected and  there  was  no  longer  any  work  to  do  on  his 
story. 

Barbara  and  Mrs.  Fay  had  both  talked  to  John 
Benin  about  their  old  home  in  California,  and  with 
the  knowledge  that  he  could  afford  it  a  keen  wish 


THE  AWAKENING  83 

was  suddenly  born  in  John  Sanbourne  to  make  some 
kind  of  a  home  for  himself  in  the  country  where 
Barbara  had  lived.  She  was  named,  her  mother 
had  told  him,  after  Santa  Barbara.  The  girl  had 
been  born  near  Santa  Barbara,  and  had  grown  up 
there  to  the  age  of  thirteen,  when  her  father  had 
died  and  their  place  had  been  sold.  After  that,  the 
mother  and  daughter  had  gone  to  Paris.  Benin  re- 
called with  crystal  clearness  all  the  girl's  warm, 
eager  picturing  of  her  old  home,  for  he  remembered 
scenery  and  even  descriptions  of  scenery  with  greater 
distinctness  than  he  remembered  faces.  He  had 
often  thought  (until  he  met  Barbara,  and  fell  in 
love)  that  he  cared  more  for  nature  and  places  and 
things  than  he  could  ever  care  for  people,  except 
those  of  his  very  own  flesh  and  blood.  He  knew  dif- 
ferently now,  but  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  would  be 
nearer  finding  peace  in  Barbara's  home-country  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  world. 

There  was  no  danger  that  she  or  her  mother  might 
some  day  appear  and  meet  him  face  to  face,  to  the 
ruin  of  Barbara's  dream  of  happiness  with  Trevor 


84         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

d'Arcy.  Mother  and  daughter  had  said  that  they 
never  wished  to  go  back,  now  that  the  old  ties  were 
broken.  When  occasionally  they  returned  to  Amer- 
ica, they  spent  their  time  in  Washington  and  New 
York;  but  with  Barbara  married  to  Trevor  d'Arcy, 
and  mistress  in  her  own  right  of  Gorston  Old  Hall, 
all  interests  would  combine  to  keep  mother  and 
daughter  in  England.  John  Benin's  ghost  might, 
if  it  chose,  safely  haunt  the  birthplace  of  his  lost 
love. 

The  day  that  the  last  proof-sheet  of  "The  War 
Wedding"  was  corrected,  Sanbourne  said  good-by  to 
Eversedge  Sibley  and  started  for  California.  He 
could  not  afford  to  travel  by  the  Limited  or  any  of 
the  fast  trains,  so  there  were  many  changes  and 
waits  for  him,  and  he  was  nearly  a  week  on  the  way; 
but  when  a  man  has  lost  or  thrown  over  the  best 
things  in  his  life  there  is  the  consolation  that  none 
of  its  small  hardships  seem  to  matter.  Besides,  he 
had  Santa  Barbara  to  look  forward  to;  and  Benin 
told  himself  that,  things  being  as  they  were,  he  was 
lucky  to  have  anything  to  look  forward  to  at  all. 


THE  AWAKENING  85 

When  he  reached  the  end  of  the  journey  at  last  it 
was  almost  like  coming  to  a  place  he  had  known  in 
dreams,  so  clearly  did  he  recognize  the  mountains 
whose  lovely  shapes  crowded  towards  the  sea.  Bar- 
bara had  all  their  names  by  heart  and  treasured  their 
photographs.  He  remembered  her  stories  of  the 
islands,  too,  floating  on  the  horizon  like  boats  at 
anchor;  and  the  trails  of  golden  kelp  seen  through 
the  green  transparence  of  the  waves,  like  the  hair 
of  sleeping  mermaids.  In  the  same  way  he  knew  the 
big  hotel  with  its  mile-long  drive  bordered  with  flam- 
ing geraniums;  he  knew  the  old  town  and — without 
asking — how  to  go  from  there  to  the  Mission.  Also 
he  knew  that,  on  the  way  to  the  Mission,  he  would 
find  the  place  which  Barbara  had  cared  for  most 
until  she  fell  in  love — not  with  him — but  with  Gors- 
ton  Old  Hall. 

He  limped  perceptibly  still,  and  could  not  walk 
far  without  pain,  so  he  decided  to  be  extravagant 
for  the  first  time  since  "coming  into  his  money"  and 
hire  a  small,  cheap  motor-car.  It  was  driven  by  its 
small,  cheap  owner,  a  young  man  with  a  ferocious 


86         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

fund  of  information  about  Santa  Barbara,  and  every 
one  who  had  ever  lived  there. 

"Heard  of  the  Fay  place?"  he  echoed  Benin's 
first  question.  "Well,  I  should  smile!  Why,  me 
and  Barbie  Fay  are  about  the  same  age,"  he  plunged 
on,  so  violently  that  no  interruption  could  have 
stopped  him.  "Not  that  we  were  in  the  same  set. 
Not  much !  But  a  cat  can  look  at  a  king.  And  any 
boy  can  look  at  any  girl,  I  guess.  Gee !  That  little 
girl  was  some  worth  lookin'  at!  Her  mother 
thought  she  was  too  good  for  us  plain  Americans,  so 
she  took  her  off  to  Europe  and  clapped  her  in  a  con- 
vent, after  the  old  man  died.  They  've  never  been 
back  this  way  since,  nor  won't  be  now.  The  girl 's 
been  married  twice,  I  was  readin'  in  the  papers. 
Once  to  some  English  lord  or  other  who  left  her  the 
same  day,  and  got  himself  killed  in  France ;  and  the 
second  time,  just  a  few  weeks  ago,  to  a  cousin  on  her 
mother's  side — a  Britisher,  too.  There  was  an  in- 
terview with  the  mother  in  the  San  Francisco  Call, 
I  saw.  One  of  our  California  journalists  over  there 
in  the  war-zone  got  it — quite  a  good  scoop.  Mrs. 


THE  AWAKENING  87 

Fay  said  it  was  an  old  romance  between  Barbie  and 
this  Captain- What  's-his-name.  But  we  never  seen 
him  here.  I  guess  he  's  English,  root  and  branch. 
Good  thing  for  that  'old  romance'  they  could  make 
sure  the  other  chap  was  killed  all  right,  all  right, 
was  n't  it"?  Some  of  them  poor  fellows  gets  blown 
to  bits  so  you  can't  tell  one  from  t'  other,  they  say, 
But  the  girl's  mother  mentioned  to  our  Call  reporter, 
that  they  knew  the  husband's  body  by  a  stylograph 
pen  in  a  gold  case,  which  was  her  own  last  present 
to  him.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  that  little  thing, 
found  in  a  rag  or  two  left  of  the  feller's  coat,  Bar- 
bie would  n't  have  dast  married  again,  I  bet.  Say, 
that 's  one  of  them  anecdotes  they  put  under  the 
heading  of  'Too  Strange  not  to  be  True !'  ain't  it*?" 
"Yes,  it  is  strange,"  Denin  repeated  mechanically. 
It  was  strange,  too — above  all  strange — that  he 
should  have  had  to  come  to  Barbara's  birthplace  to 
learn  this  detail  casually.  A  thousand  times  he  had 
wondered  how  they  had  identified  John  Benin's 
body  with  enough  certainty  to  take  it  back  to  Eng- 
land and  give  it  a  funeral  with  military  honors. 


88         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

Perhaps,  if  he  had  not  come  to  Santa  Barbara  and 
in  Santa  Barbara  happened  to  stumble  upon  this 
loquacious  fellow  with  the  motor-car  to  hire,  he 
might  have  gone  through  all  the  rest  of  his  life  with- 
out knowing.  And  another  strange  thing  was  that 
he  had  lent  the  stylographic  pen — Mrs.  Fay's  last 
present — to  a  man  who  wanted  to  write  a  letter  just 
before  the  battle.  That  man,  who  had  been  killed, 
was  possibly  still  reported  "missing,"  while  John 
Benin's  wife,  assured  of  his  death  by  a  peculiarly  in- 
timate clue,  had  been  able  to  take  her  happiness  with- 
out fear.  If  Barbara's  mother  had  not  given  him 
the  pen,  he  would  not  now  be  numbered  among  the 
dead,  but  would  have  been  free  to  go  back  to  his 
wife  of  an  hour,  and  perhaps  even  teach  her  to  love 
him  in  the  end. 

Well,  all  that  did  n't  bear  thinking  of  now !  He 
tried,  as  he  had  tried  a  hundred  times — but  never  so 
poignantly — to  hold  in  his  heart  the  memory  of  flam- 
ing happiness  worth  all  the  pain  of  living  through 
the  burnt-out  years:  the  happiness  he  had  put  into 
the  pages  of  his  "War  Wedding." 


THE  AWAKENING  89 

With  some  people  who  had  known  Barbara  he 
would  have  liked  to  talk  of  her,  but  not  with  this 
crude  youth  who  spouted  her  praises  from  a  mouth 
full  of  chewing  gum.  Denin  answered  a  pointed 
question  of  the  chauffeur's  by  saying  that  he  had  en- 
quired about  the  Fay  place  because  he  heard  it  was 
worth  seeing.  He  might  like  to  buy  a  little  prop- 
erty somewhere  near  if  it  could  be  got. 

"You  bet  it  can  be  got!"  was  the  prompt  an- 
swer. "That  is,  if  you  want  something  little 
enough^  you  can  get  a  bit  of  the  old  Fay  property 
itself." 

"Really*?"  said  Denin.  "I  thought  it  was  all  dis- 
posed of  years  ago." 

"So  it  was.  Eight  years  ago  and  a  bit.  I  remem- 
ber because  I  made  an  errand  to  sneak  down  to  the 
depot  and  see  Barbie  go  off  in  the  train,  as  pretty  as 
a  white  rose,  dressed  in  black  for  her  pa.  I  was  only 
a  cub  of  fourteen.  An  old  feller  from  the  East, 
staying  at  the  Potter,  went  crazy  about  the  place 
and  bought  it  at  Mrs.  Fay's  own  price.  (Lucky  for 
her!  They  say  she'd  nothing  else  to  live  on!) 


90         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

Feller  by  the  name  of  Samuel  Drake.  He  was  out  in 
California  for  his  bronchitis  or  something,  and  took 
a  fancy  to  the  country.  He  wanted  his  married  son 
with  a  young  bride  to  live  with  him,  so  he  got  a 
real  bright  idea.  I  suppose  the  folks  who  told  you 
about  the  Fay  place  never  said  nothing  about  a  kind 
of  little  playhouse  called  the  Mirador  (Spanish  for 
view-place  or  look-out,  I  guess),  built  at  one  end  of 
the  property  that  fronts  to  the  sea*?" 

"I — rather  think  they  did  mention  something  of 
the  kind,"  said  Denin.  The  first  time  he  had  ever 
seen  Barbara,  at  a  dance  soon  after  she  was  pre- 
sented, she  had  happened  to  speak  of  the  Mirador. 
It  was  a  miniature  house  which  her  father  had  built 
for  her  at  her  favorite  view  point,  as  a  birthday  sur- 
prise, when  she  was  ten.  There  was  an  "upstairs 
and  a  downstairs,"  a  bath,  and  a  "tiny,  tiny  kitchen" 
where  she  had  been  supposed  to  do  her  own  cooking. 
In  the  sitting-room  she  had  had  lessons  with  her  gov- 
erness. The  one  upstairs  room,  with  its  wonderful 
view  of  the  bay  and  the  islands,  had  been  turned 
into  a  bedroom  for  her,  when  she  had  scarlet  fever 


THE  AWAKENING  91 

and  had  to  be  isolated  with  a  nurse.  She  had 
"loved  getting  well  there,  and  lying  in  her  ham- 
mock on  the  balcony  with  curtains  of  roses." 

"Old  man  Drake  had  the  smart  notion  of  putting 
on  a  couple  more  rooms  in  a  wing  at  the  back,  and 
offering  it  to  his  son  and  his  son's  bride,"  the  driver 
of  the  car  was  explaining,  over  the  motor's  cheap  clat- 
ter. "But  while  the  work  was  going  on,  the  new 
beams  caught  fire  one  night  (I  guess  some  tramp 
could  tell  why)  and  the  whole  addition  and  a  bit 
of  the  original  burnt  down.  Just  then  the  son 
changed  his  plans  anyhow,  and  decided  to  go  into 
business  with  his  wife's  folks  in  the  East.  That 
sort  of  sickened  the  old  man,  so  he  let  the  Mirador 
fall  into  rack  and  ruin;  and  now  he  spends  about 
three  quarters  of  his  time  in  Boston  with  the  son.  I 
guess  he 's  sorry  he  was  in  such  a  hurry  to  buy  the 
Fay  place.  Anyways,  he  won't  spend  money  on 
the  Mirador,  but  rather  than  it  should  stay  the  way 
it  is,  he  '11  sell  it  in  its  present  condition  with  enough 
ground  to  make  a  garden.  The  thing  looks  like  a 
burnt  bird's  nest — except  for  the  flowers,  and  the 


92         WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

house  ain't  much  bigger  than  a  baby  doll's  house.  I 
suppose  it  wouldn't  suit  you,  would  it?" 

"Perhaps  it  might,"  answered  Denin,  trying  to 
speak  calmly.  But  in  his  heart  he  meant  to  have 
Barbara's  Mirador  if  it  cost  him  every  penny  he  had 
left  from  his  advance  on  "The  War  Wedding."  It 
was  almost  as  if,  to  atone  for  taking  herself  out  of 
his  life,  Barbara  had  given  him  this  dear  plaything 
of  her  childhood  to  remember  her  by. 

"Well,  you  '11  be  able  to  make  up  your  mind," 
said  his  guide,  slowing  down  the  rattletrap  car. 
"Here  we  are  at  the  Fay  place,  now — or  the  Drake 
place,  as  maybe  I  ought  to  call  it — and  there  's  the 
Mirador.  No  wonder  old  Drake  wants  to  get  it 
fixed  up  again !  The  way  it  is  now,  it  spoils  the  look 
of  the  whole  property." 

The  "Fay  place"  gave  a  first  impression  of  having 
been  an  orange  plantation  transformed  into  a  vast 
garden.  There  were  acres  and  acres  of  land,  Denin 
could  not  guess  how  many.  In  the  midst  of  orange 
trees  in  fruit  and  blossom,  and  pepper  trees  shedding 
coral,  and  tall  palm  trees  with  long  gray  beards 


THE  AWAKENING  93 

which  were  last  year's  fronds,  stood  the  big,  rambling 
pink  bungalow  that  had  been  Barbara's  home.  Its 
tiled  roof  and  wide  loggias  were  just  visible  from  the 
road;  but  the  Mirador,  to  which  the  driver  pointed, 
was  in  plain  sight.  Benin's  heart  bounded.  He  al- 
most expected  to  see  a  young  girl  with  smoke-blue 
eyes  and  copper-beech  hair  (it  had  been  red  in  those 
days,  she  'd  told  him)  open  one  of  the  shuttered  win- 
dows and  look  out  with  a  smile. 

Once,  while  she  and  her  mother  were  staying  at 
Gorston  Old  Hall,  he  had  tried  to  teach  Barbara 
chess.  In  the  midst  of  a  game  which  she  hoped  to 
win,  she  suddenly  saw  herself  facing  defeat.  "Let 's 
begin  again,  and  play  it  all  over !"  she  had  cried  out, 
laughing. 

Ah,  if  they  could  do  that  now :  begin  again,  and 
play  the  game  all  over! 

Well,  the  ghost  of  John  Denin  could  begin  to 
play  hero  with  the  ghost  of  Barbara  Fay's  childhood, 
when  he  came  to  have  his  home  in  her  old  play- 
house. He  knew  that  this  must  and  should  be  his 
home,  now  that  he  had  come  and  seen  the  place  and 


94        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

felt  its  influence  even  more  subtly  than  he  had 
thought  to  feel  it.  He  could  not  get  through  his 
shorn  life  anywhere  else. 

The  Mirador  was  distant  at  least  four  acres  from 
the  house.  It  too  was  pink,  like  the  parent  bunga- 
low, or  it  had  once  been  pink,  before  the  fire  which 
destroyed  the  addition  for  servants  at  the  back  had 
marred  the  rose  color  of  its  plastered  adobe  walls. 
A  roof  of  Spanish  tiles  dropped  low  like  a  visor,  giv- 
ing cover  to  the  balcony  of  the  upper  story;  and 
the  floor  of  that  balcony  roofed  the  one  below.  On 
each  of  these  balconies  only  one  window — which  was 
also  a  door — looked  out;  but  it  was  a  huge  window, 
with  green  exterior  shutters;  and  the  stout,  square 
columns  of  the  two  verandas  were  almost  hidden 
with  roses,  passion-flower,  and  convolvulus  which  had 
either  survived  the  fire  or  grown  up  since.  Though 
the  front  was  so  nearly  intact,  from  each  side  of  the 
little  house  could  be  seen  the  blackened  wreck  of 
burnt  beams;  and  to  screen  the  parent  bungalow  from 
any  possible  glimpse  of  this  eyesore,  a  high  barrier 
of  trellis-work  had  been  erected  about  two  hundred 


THE  AWAKENING  95 

feet  distant  from  the  Mirador.  Over  this  barrier 
some  quick-climbing  creepers  had  been  trained,  and 
they  had  grown  in  such  thick  masses  that  an  almost 
impenetrable  green  wall  had  already  grown  up  be- 
tween the  big  house  and  the  tiny  one. 

"This  will  suit  me  exactly,"  said  Denin,  trying  to 
speak  coolly.  "We  '11  drive  back  at  once,  please, 
to  the  agent  who  has  the  selling  of  the  Mirador." 

He  was  almost  afraid  to  hear  the  price,  lest  his 
last  dollar  might  not  suffice  to  secure  the  treasure. 
But  the  agent  in  whose  hands  "old  Drake"  had  put 
his  business  named  the  sum  of  two  thousand  dol- 
lars. This,  he  said,  was  a  mere  song  for  land  so 
near  Santa  Barbara;  and,  no  doubt,  he  was  right. 
But  it  was  a  large  slice  of  John  Sanbourne's  capital, 
and  left  him  only  a  small  remnant  for  repairing  the 
place,  as  he  must  agree  to  do  before  the  contract 
could  be  signed. 

The  journey  from  New  York  had  cost  a  good  deal, 
and — he  must  live  somehow,  unless  he  could  get 
work  fitted  for  a  "lame  dog"  to  do.  Mr.  Sibley  had 


96        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

talked  vaguely  of  "royalties,"  but  it  seemed  impos- 
sible to  Benin  that  many  people  should  actually 
care  to  buy  his  book — the  strange  little  book  written 
for  himself,  and  sent  wandering  out  into  the  world 
to  find  Barbara.  Even  if  people  did  buy  it,  the  sales 
could  surely  never  go  beyond  the  three  thousand  dol- 
lars Eversedge  Sibley  had  recklessly  pressed  upon 
him  in  advance !  However,  Benin  did  not  hesitate 
for  any  of  these  reasons.  "I  '11  buy  the  Mirador  and 
the  acre  and  a  half  of  ground  Mr.  Bra^e  is  willing 
to  sell  with  it,"  he  said  to  the  agent.  *And  I  'd  like 
to  pay  for  it  if  possible  and  settle  up  everything  to- 
day. Then  I  could  move  into  the  house  at  once." 

The  agent  stared.  "There 's  no  furniture,"  he 
said. 

"I  can  get  in  enough  to  begin  with,  in  an  hour  or 
two,  surely,"  Benin  persisted.  "I  'm  used  to  rough- 
ing it." 

The  other  could  well  believe  that,  from  the  look 
of  the  queer  fellow !  As  a  business  man,  he  would 
certainly  not  accept  a  check,  and  would  be  inclined 
to  ask  expert  opinion  even  on  bank  notes,  paid  by  an 


THE  AWAKENING  97 

unknown  client  with  such  scars,  and  such  clothes,  and 
in  such  a  hurry! 

"You  could  hardly  live  in  the  house  while  the  re- 
pairs you  must  agree  to  are  being  made,"  the  agent 
reminded  the  would-be  buyer.  "Don't  you  think 
you  had  better — •" 

"I  can  manage  all  right,"  Denin  cut  short  the  ad- 
vice. "As  for  the  repairs,  I  shall  make  them  of 
course.  What  Mr.  Drake  asks  is  for  the  house  to  be 
restored  to  its  former  appearance  (are  n't  those  the 
words'?)  not  enlarged.  Well,  I  must  tell  you 
frankly  that  I  can't  afford  to  pay  for  labor.  I  will 
guarantee  to  make  the  Mirador  look  just  as  it  used 
to  look,  and  do  it  all  with  my  own  hands.  I  can't 
work  very  fast,  because — you  can  see,  I  've  been  dis- 
abled. But  I  shall  have  an  incentive  to  finish  as 
soon  as  possible,  if  I  'm  actually  living  in  the  house." 

"You  had  a  severe  accident,  I  suppose^"  the  curi- 
ous agent  could  not  resist  suggesting. 

"It  was — in  a  way — an  accident,"  said  Denin, 
and  his  smile  was  rather  grim. 

When  he  had  paid  for  the  place,  had  bought  ma- 


98        WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

terials  for  restoring  the  house  and  improving  the 
garden,  had  collected  a  few  bits  of  furniture  and 
added  some  other  necessaries,  the  owner  of  the  Mira- 
dor  had  only  seven  hundred  dollars  left  out  of  his  for- 
tune Nor  did  he  at  that  time  know  how  he  was  to 
earn  more  dollars.  Nevertheless  he  had  come  as 
near  to  be  being  content  as  he  could  ever  hope  to  be  in 
this  world.  He  had  given  his  own  old  home  to 
Barbara,  and  there  was  no  place  for  memories  of  him 
there.  But  she  had  given  her  old  home  to  him  (un- 
consciously, it  was  true;  yet  it  seemed  to  be  her  gift) 
and  memories  of  Barbara  would  be  his  companions 
each  hour  of  the  day.  Besides,  he  had  the  task  of 
restoring  every  marred  feature  of  the  little  Mirador 
exactly  as  she  had  described  it  to  him.  He  bought 
a  ladder  and  plaster  and  paint,  and  did  mason's 
work  and  painter's  work  with  a  good  will.  In  the 
four  rooms  which  were  more  or  less  intact — bedroom, 
sitting-room,  miniature  kitchen  and  bath — he  put  a 
few  odds  and  ends  of  second-hand  furniture,  enough 
for  a  hermit.  And  when  his  labor  of  love  on  the 
house  was  accomplished,  he  set  to  work  in  the  gar- 


THE  AWAKENING  99 

den.  Some  day,  he  told  himself,  he  should  find  in 
the  garden  the  greatest  solace  of  all. 

In  his  deep  absorption,  he  forgot  the  book  for 
days  on  end.  Even  in  his  dreams  he  did  not  remem- 
ber it,  for  in  the  room  where  Barbara  had  lain  ill 
with  scarlet  fever,  dreams  lent  her  to  him,  a  childish 
Barbara,  very  kind  and  sweet.  He  knew  the  date 
on  which  the  book  was  to  come  out,  but  he  had  lost 
count  by  a  day  or  two,  therefore  it  was  a  shock  of 
surprise  to  open  a  parcel  which  arrived  one  morn- 
ing by  post,  and  to  see  six  purple  volumes.  On  each 
cover,  in  gold  lettering,  was  printed  "The  War  Wed- 
ding: John  Sanbourne." 

His  hand  shook  a  little  as  he  opened  the  front 
page,  and  began  to  read.  Strange,  how  poignantly 
real  the  story  was  in  this  form,  more  real  even  than 
when  he  had  written  it,  or  read  it  over  in  manu- 
script that  first  day  in  New  York  many  weeks  ago 
now.  He  went  on  and  on,  and  could  not  stop. 
There  was  no  servant  in  the  Mirador  to  look  after 
his  wants,  and  so  he  had  no  food  till  evening;  none 
until  he  had  finished  the  book,  and  had  walked  for 


ioo       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

a  long  time  in  the  garden,  thinking  it  all  over  with 
passionate  revival  of  interest.  After  that  night  the 
book  again  shared  his  dreams  with  Barbara.  Some- 
times in  dreaming,  he  saw  Barbara  reading  the  story ; 
but  when  he  waked,  he  said  to  himself  there  were  ten 
chances  against  one  that  she  would  ever  hear  of  it. 

When  "The  War  Wedding"  in  volume  form  was 
about  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  old,  a  thick  envelope 
full  of  American  press  cuttings  arrived  for  "Mr. 
John  Sanbourne,"  from  Eversedge  Sibley  and  Com- 
pany. Every  critic,  even  those  of  the  most  impor- 
tant newspapers;  praised  the  work  of  the  unknown 
author  with  enthusiasm.  A  notice  signed  by  a 
famous  name  said,  "In  reading  this  story,  told  with 
a  limpid  simplicity  almost  unique  in  the  annals  of 
story-writing,  one  forgets  the  printed  page  and  feels 
that  one  is  listening  to  a  voice :  not  an  ordinary  voice, 
but  the  voice  of  a  disembodied  soul  which  has  for- 
gotten nothing  of  this  existence  and  has  already 
learned  much  about  the  next :  a  philosopher  of  crys- 
tal clearness  and  inspiring  serenity." 

Nearly  all  the  criticisms  had  something  in  them 


THE  AWAKENING  101 

of  the  same  curious  exaltation  of  mood.  The  writers 
asked:  "Who  is  John  Sanbourne,  that  he  can  work 
this  spell  upon  us*?"  And  one  said,  "Whoever  he  is,  he 
is  bound  to  get  post-bags  full  of  'appreciations'  from 
half  the  women  in  the  world,  and  a  good  many  men." 
A  letter  from  Sibley  was  enclosed  with  the  cut- 
tings, congratulating  the  author.  "This  is  only  the 
first  batch,"  he  wrote,  "but  it 's  a  phenomenally  big 
one  for  this  short  time.  Evidently  these  hardened 
critics  shared  my  weakness.  When  they  began  the 
book  they  couldn't  put  it  down  till  the  end,  and 
then  they  had  to  relieve  their  pent-up  feelings  by 
dashing  them  onto  paper  at  white  heat.  Many  of 
these  reviews,  as  you  '11  see  by  the  date,  appeared  on 
the  day  after  publication,  most  of  the  others  on  that 
following.  Such  opinions  by  such  critics  in  such 
papers  have  sold  the  book  like  hot  cakes.  Luckily 
we  expected  a  huge  demand,  or  we  should  already  be 
unable  to  supply  it.  Thanks  to  our  foresight  we 
have  a  second  and  third  big  edition  ready,  and  an 
immense  fourth  one  in  the  press.  We  have  heard 
by  cable  that  our  history  over  here  is  repeating  it- 


102       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

self  in  England.  The  exact  wording  is,  'Reviews 
and  orders  unprecedented.'  You  will  be  getting  of- 
fers from  all  the  publishers  for  your  next  work,  but 
we  hope  you  '11  be  true  to  us.  I  am  in  earnest  when 
I  speak  of  this,  for  if  I  am  interviewed,  I  should  like 
to  be  able  to  say,  'Mr.  Sanbourne  has  already  an  idea 
for  another  book  which  we  hope  to  publish  about  a 
year  from  now.'  That  will  keep  them  remembering 
you !  Not  that  they  're  likely  to  forget  for  awhile. 
They  '11  be  too  busy  crying — the  women,  I  mean,  and 
I  should  n't  consider  a  man  safe  without  his  hand- 
kerchief. Please  wire  about  the  new  book.  Also 
whether  we  are  at  liberty  to  answer  the  numerous 
journalistic  questions  we  're  getting  about  you,  with 
any  personal  details,  or  whether  you  prefer  to  hide 
behind  a  veil  of  mystery.  I  'm  not  sure  myself 
which  is  preferable." 

But  Sanbourne  was  very  sure.  He  left  his  gar- 
den work  to  walk  to  Santa  Barbara  and  send  a  tele- 
gram. 

"Say  nothing  about  me  to  any  one,  please,  ex- 
cept that  I  shall  never  write  another  book." 


PART  II 
THE  LETTERS 


CHAPTER  VII 

JOHN  SANBOURNE  had  smiled  when  he  read 
the  critic's  prophecy  that  he  was  "bound  to  get 
letters  of  appreciation  from  half  the  women  in  the 
world,"  and  he  had  thought  no  more  of  the  comic 
suggestion  until  the  letters  began  to  come.  But  the 
letters  were  not  comic. 

They  were  forwarded  in  large  packets  by  Sibley 
and  Company,  and  there  were  many,  incredibly 
many  of  them;  some  from  men,  but  mostly  from 
women.  The  writers  felt  impelled  to  tell  the  au- 
thor of  "The  War  Wedding"  what  a  wonderful 
book  they  thought  it  was,  or  how  much  good  it  had 
done  them  in  their  different  states  of  mind.  These 
states  the  readers  of  Sanbourne's  book  described  al- 
most as  penitents  confessing  to  a  priest  detail  their 
sins.  And  the  strange  confidences,  or  pitiful  plead- 
ings for  advice  and  help  from  one  who  "seemed  to 
know  such  glorious  truths  about  life  and  death," 

105 


io6       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

were  desperately  pathetic  to  Denin.  He  was  ut- 
terly amazed  and  overwhelmed  by  this  phase  of  his 
unlooked-for  success,  and  knew  not  how  to  cope  with 
it. 

The  first  thousand  and  more  letters  were  all  from 
people  in  the  United  States.  Then  letters  from 
Canada  began  drifting  in.  At  last,  when  "The  War 
Wedding"  had  been  on  sale  and  selling  edition  after 
edition  for  eight  weeks,  a  rather  smaller  parcel  than 
usual  arrived  from  the  publishers.  Denin,  who  was 
in  the  garden,  took  it  from  the  postman,  at  the  new 
gate  which  led  to  the  Mirador.  It  was  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  he  had  been  gathering  late  roses ;  for  every 
day  he  decorated  with  her  favorite  blossoms  the  two 
principal  rooms  of  the  house  which  child-Barbara 
had  loved.  He  had  a  big  pair  of  scissors  in  his 
hand ;  and  sitting  down  on  a  bench,  in  the  cool  strip 
of  shade  that  ran  the  length  of  the  lower  balcony, 
he  cut  the  string  which  fastened  the  packet.  This 
he  did,  not  because  he  was  impatient  to  see  what  it 
contained,  but  because  he  was  warm  and  tired  after 
two  hours  of  garden  work  and  wanted  an  excuse  to 


THE  LETTERS  107 

rest.  The  letters  of  so  many  sad  women  who  begged 
for  counsel  that  he  knew  not  how  to  give,  were  hav- 
ing a  shattering  effect  upon  his  nerves.  He  had  not 
supposed  that  there  were  so  many  tragic  souls  of 
women  in  the  world,  outside  the  war-zone,  and  he 
dreaded  the  details  of  their  lives.  Sometimes  he  was 
half  tempted  to  put  the  letters  away  or  destroy  them, 
unread. 

There  was  a  vague  hope  in  his  mind  that  this 
parcel  might  have  something  other  than  letters  in 
it:  but  as  the  shears  bit  the  tightly  tied  string,  the 
stout  linen  envelope  burst  open  and  began  to  dis- 
gorge its  contents:  letters — letters — letters! 

Between  his  feet  John  Sanbourne  had  placed  the 
basket  of  roses;  and  the  letters,  falling  out  of  the 
big  envelope,  began  to  drop  onto  the  green  leaves 
and  crepy-crisp  blooms  of  pink  and  white  and 
cream. 

"English  stamps!"  he  said  aloud — for  the  habit 
had  grown  upon  him  of  talking  to  himself.  Bend- 
ing down  to  pick  up  the  letters,  a  dark  flush  streamed 
to  his  forehead.  There  was  one  envelope  of  the 


io8       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

same  texture,  the  same  gray-blue  tint,  and  the  same 
long,  narrow  shape  that  Sir  John  Denin  had  liked 
and  always  used  at  Gorston  Old  Hall.  It  had  fal- 
len face  downward;  and  as  he  rescued  it  from  a  fra- 
grant bath  of  dew,  he  slowly  turned  it  over.  There 
was  an  English  stamp  upon  this  envelope  also,  and 
it  was  addressed  to  "John  Sanbourne,  Esq.,  care  of 
Messrs.  Eversedge  Sibley  and  Company,"  in  Bar- 
bara's handwriting. 

For  an  instant  everything  went  black,  just  as  it 
had  done  months  ago  when  he  had  got  on  his  feet 
too  suddenly  in  hospital.  He  shut  his  eyes,  and 
leaned  back  with  his  head  against  the  house  wall — 
the  wall  of  Barbara's  Mirador.  It  was  as  if  he 
could  hear  her  voice  speaking  to  him  across  six  thou- 
sand miles  of  land  and  sea.  But  it  spoke  to  John 
Sanbourne,  not  to  John  Denin. 

"My  God — she  's  read  the  book.     She 's  written!" 

He  had  to  say  the  words  over  to  himself  before 
he  could  make  the  thing  seem  credible. 

And  even  then  he  did  not  open  the  letter.  He 
dreaded  to  open  it,  and  sat  very  still  and  rigid,  grasp- 


THE  LETTERS  109 

ing  the  envelope  as  if  it  were  an  electric  battery  of 
which  he  could  not  let  go. 

What  if  she  hated  the  book?  What  if  she  wrote, 
as  a  woman  who  had  been  twice  a  war  bride,  to  say 
that  a  subject  such  as  he  had  chosen  was  too  sacred 
to  put  into  print"?  What  if  she  felt  bound  to  re- 
proach the  author  for  treading  brutally  on  holy 
ground*? 

If  that  was  what  the  letter  had  to  say  to  him, 
his  message  of  peace  had  failed,  and  all  his  patched- 
up  scheme  of  existence  broke  down  in  that  one  fail- 
ure. 

The  thought  that  he  was  a  coward  shrinking  from 
a  blow  nerved  him  to  open  the  letter.  He  was  on 
the  point  of  tearing  the  envelope,  but  he  could  not 
be  rough  with  a  thing  Barbara  had  touched,  nor  could 
he  deface  it.  He  took  up  the  scissors  and  cut  off  one 
end  of  the  envelope,  then  drew  out  a  sheet  of  the 
familiar  gray-blue  paper.  Unfolding  it,  his  hands 
trembled.  All  the  rest  of  his  life,  such  as  it  was,  he 
felt,  hung  on  what  he  was  about  to  read. 

The   letter   began   abruptly.     "You   must   have 


no       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

many  letters  from  strangers,  but  none  will  bring  you 
more  gratitude  than  this.  If  you  are  like  your  book, 
you  are  too  generous  to  be  bored  by  grateful  words 
from  people  whose  sore  hearts  you  helped  to  heal,  so 
I  won't  apologize.  You  could  not  write  as  you  do, 
I  think,  if  you  didn't  want  to  do  good  to  others. 
Will  you  then  help  me,  even  more  than  you  have 
helped  me  already,  by  answering  a  question  I  am 
going  to  ask?  Will  you  tell  me  whether  the  won- 
derful things  you  say,  to  comfort  those  of  us  who 
are  losing  our  dearest  in  battle,  are  just  inspired 
thoughts,  or  whether  you  have  yourself  been  very 
near  death,  so  near  that  you  caught  a  vision  from 
the  other  side?  If  you  answer  me,  and  if  you  say 
that  actual  experience  gave  you  this  knowledge,  your 
book — which  has  already  been  like  a  strong  hand 
dragging  me  up  from  the  depths — will  become  a 
beautiful  message  meant  especially  for  me  out  of 
all  the  whole  world,  making  all  my  future  life 
bearable. 

"Every  night  for  months  I  've  gone  to  bed  unable 
to  sleep,  because  I  've  felt  exactly  as  if  my  brain 


THE  LETTERS  ill 

were  a  battlefield,  full  of  the  agony  and  hopeless- 
ness of  brave  men  dying  violent  and  dreadful  deaths, 
cut  off  in  the  midst  of  youth,  with  the  stories  of  their 
lives  tragically  unfinished.  But  since  I  read  hi  your 
book  that  marvelous  scene  with  those  suddenly  re- 
leased spirits — young  men  of  both  sides,  friends  and 
enemies,  meeting  and  talking  to  each  other,  saying, 
'Is  this  all?'  'Is  this  the  worst  that  death  can  do  to 
us?'  why,  I  seem  to  pass  beyond  the  battlefield!  I 
go  with  those  happy,  surprised  young  men  who  are 
seeing  for  the  first  time  the  great  'reality  behind  the 
thing9  and  a  feeling  of  rest  and  immense  peace  comes 
to  me.  I  don't  keep  it  long  at  a  time.  I  can't,  yet. 
But  if  you  write  and  say  you  know,  I  think  I  may 
some  day  learn  to  keep  it. 

"I  have  the  English  edition  of  your  book,  but  I 
have  read  in  a  newspaper  an  extract  from  the  in- 
terview a  journalist  had  with  the  publisher  in  New 
York.  You  see,  everybody  who  has  some  one  dear 
in  the  war,  or  has  lost  some  one  beloved,  is  reading 
and  talking  of  the  book.  They  all  want  to  know 
things  about  you,  but  perhaps  not  all  for  as  real  a 


112       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

reason  as  mine.  Some  people  have  said  that  perhaps 
the  author  may  be  a  woman,  who  chooses  to  write 
under  a  man's  name.  I  felt  sure  from  the  first  it 
could  n't  be  so,  for  only  a  man  could  say  those  things 
as  you  say  them;  but  I  was  glad  of  your  publisher's 
assurance  that  you  are  a  man,  and  that  your  home 
now  is  in  the  far  West  in  America.  Perhaps  I 
should  n't  have  dared  write  you  if  you  were  in  this 
country,  because — but  no,  I  need  n't  explain. 

"My  name  can  be  of  no  interest  to  you,  yet  I  will 
sign  it. 

"Yours  gratefully,  Barbara  Denin." 

"Barbara  Denin."  .  .  .  She  had  kept  his  name! 

Many  a  woman  did  (he  was  aware)  after  a  second 
marriage  continue  to  use  the  name  of  her  first  hus- 
band, in  order  to  retain  a  title.  But  all  he  knew  of 
the  girl  Barbara  Fay  made  it  amazing  to  him  that 
she  should  hold  to  the  name  of  a  man  she  had  never 
loved,  after  becoming  the  wife  of  a  man  she  had 
loved  since  childhood. 

A  wild  doubt  set  his  brain  on  fire.  Could  there 
have  been  some  terrible  misunderstanding?  Was  it 


THE  LETTERS  113 

possible  that  after  all  she  had  never  married  Trevor 
d'Arcy?  .  .  .  Carried  away  on  the  flame  of  passion 
fanned  by  her  letter,  Denin  told  himself  that  it 
might  be  so,  and  that  if  she  were  free  he  would  still 
have  the  right  to  go  back  to  her.  If  she  had  not 
given  herself  to  another  man  she  belonged  to  him, 
to  him  alone,  and  she  would  not  hate  him  if  he  ex- 
plained the  sacrifice  he  had  made  for  her  sake. 

He  was  on  his  feet  before  he  knew  what  he  was 
doing.  The  blinding  hope  lit  body  and  soul  as  with 
some  curative  ray  beyond  the  ultra  violet.  It  shot, 
through  his  worn  frame,  life  and  abounding  health, 
making  of  him  for  a  magical  moment  more  than  the 
man  he  had  been  a  year  ago.  But  it  was  only  a 
moment;  indeed,  less  than  a  moment.  For  it  did 
not  take  him  sixty  seconds  to  remember  how  he  had 
heard  of  Barbara's  marriage  to  her  cousin  Captain 
d'Arcy.  Walter  Severne  the  airman  had  said  that 
her  wedding  had  taken  place  on  the  same  day  with 
his  own.  Severne  had  blamed  her.  Every  word  he 
had  said  was  branded  on  Benin's  brain.  There 
could  be  no  mistake.  Whatever  the  motive  might 


114       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

be  for  signing  herself  Barbara  Benin,  she  was  in  all 
certainty  d'Arcy's  wife. 

With  the  violent  reaction  of  feeling  came  a  sense 
of  physical  disintegration.  A  heavy  fatigue  that 
weighted  his  heart  and  turned  his  bones  to  iron  fol- 
lowed the  brief  buoyancy  of  spirit.  Yet  he  could 
not  rest.  He  had  to  walk,  to  keep  in  constant  move- 
ment, to  escape  some  tidal  wave  which  threatened 
suddenly  to  engulf  his  soul.  He  passed  out  from 
the  cool  shadow  of  the  balcony  into  the  blaze  of 
sunlight  and  drank  in  the  hot  perfume  of  the  flow- 
ers. At  the  end  of  a  path  a  tall  cypress  held  its 
black,  burnt-out  torch  high  against  the  sky.  Benin 
went  and  leaned  against  it;  doubly  glad  of  his  lone- 
liness in  this  refuge  he  had  found,  and  thankful 
that  none  but  the  trees  and  flowers  of  his  garden 
could  see  him  in  his  weakness  and  his  pain. 

The  dark  cypress  he  looked  up  to  seemed  to  have 
gone  through  fire  and  to  have  triumphed  over  death. 
Benin  felt  a  kind  of  kinship  with  it,  wishing  that 
from  the  tree  and  from  all  nature  calmness  and 
strength  might  pass  into  his  spirit.  He  imagined 


THE  LETTERS  115 

that  he  could  hear  the  rushing  of  sap  deep  under  the 
rough  bark.  Generations  of  joys  and  sorrows  had 
come  and  gone  since  the  tree  was  young,  and  had 
vanished,  leaving  no  more  trace  than  sun  or  storm. 
So  it  would  be  with  what  he  was  suffering  now. 
The  things  that  mattered  in  the  life  of  this  earth 
were  strength  and  steadfastness.  Denin  prayed  for 
them,  a  voiceless  prayer  to  Nature. 

When  he  grew  calmer  he  walked  again,  and  lifted 
up  his  face  to  the  sun.  "I  '11  answer  her  letter," 
he  thought.  It  seemed  strange  to  him  now,  after  the 
shock  of  what  had  happened,  that  when  the  letters 
began  to  come,  he  had  never  imagined  himself  re- 
ceiving one  from  Barbara.  He  had  had  the  book 
published  in  order  that  it  might  have  some  chance 
of  reaching  her,  of  helping  her;  yet  the  proof  that 
she  had  been  reached  and  helped  had  come  upon  him 
like  a  thunderbolt. 

Of  course  he  was  thankful,  now  that  he  put  it 
to  himself  in  such  a  way.  He  ought  to  be  almost 
happy,  he  tried  to  think;  but  he  was  at  the  world's 
end  from  happiness.  A  hurricane  had  swept 


ii6       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

through  his  soul,  and  it  would  take  him  a  long  time 
to  build  up  again  the  miserable  little  refuge  which 
had  been  his  house  of  peace.  Still,  it  did  n't  mat- 
ter about  himself.  He  would  write  to  Barbara,  and 
give  her  the  assurance  she  asked  for.  He  was  glad 
now  of  a  whim  that  had  led  him  to  leam  typewrit- 
ing two  or  three  years  ago,  for  he  could  not  trust  to 
disguising  his  hand  so  well  that  she  might  not  rec- 
ognize it.  It  was  many  months  since  he  had  prac- 
ticed typing,  but  he  thought  that  in  a  few  hours  he 
might  again  pick  up  the  trick  which  he  could  not 
quite  have  lost. 

Rather  than  let  himself  think  any  longer,  he  went 
out  at  once,  walking  to  the  town,  where  he  bought 
a  small  typewriter  of  a  new  make.  Its  lettering  was 
in  script,  which  seemed  less  offensive  and  coldly  busi- 
nesslike for  a  letter  than  print.  Back  again  at  the 
Mirador  he  tried  the  machine,  and  sooner  than  he 
had  expected  the  old  facility  returned.  Then  he 
was  ready  to  begin  his  answer  to  Barbara;  but  for 
a  long  time  he  sat  with  his  fingers  on  the  keys,  his 
eyes  fixed  upon  them  aimlessly.  It  was  not  that  he 


THE  LETTERS  117 

could  find  nothing  to  say.  He  could  find  too  many 
things,  and  too  many  ways  of  saying  those  things. 
But  all  were  expressions  of  thoughts  which  he  might 
not  put  on  paper  for  Barbara  to  read. 

Even  after  he  began  to  type,  he  took  page  after 
page  out  of  the  machine  and  tore  up  each  one. 
Vaguely  he  felt  that  the  right  way  was  to  be  laconic ; 
that  he  ought  to  show  no  emotion,  lest  he  should 
show  too  much.  Finally  he  finished  a  few  para- 
graphs which  he  knew  to  be  lame  and  halting,  like 
himself,  stiff  and  altogether  inadequate.  Yet  he 
was  sure  that  he  would  be  able  to  do  no  better,  and 
so  he  determined  to  send  his  letter  off  as  it  was. 

"You  say  you  are  grateful  to  me,"  Denin  began 
as  abruptly  as  Barbara  had  begun  in  writing  to  him, 
"but  it  is  for  me  to  be  grateful  to  you  really,  for 
speaking  as  you  do  of  my  story,  'The  War  Wedding.' 
I  am  answering  your  letter  the  day  it  has  reached  me, 
because  you  are  anxious  to  have  a  reply  to  your  ques- 
tion. It  is  what  you  wished  it  might  be.  I  have 
been  very  near  to  death,  so  near  that  I  seemed  to  see 
across,  to  the  other  side  of  what  we  think  of  as  a 


ii8       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

gulf.  If  I  saw  aright,  it  is  not  a  gulf.  .  .  .  Those 
voices  of  young  men  passing  suddenly  over  in  crowds, 
I  thought,  I  believed,  and  still  believe  I  heard.  I 
can  almost  hear  them  now,  because  one  does  not 
forget  such  things  if  one  comes  back.  I  trust  this 
answer  may  be  of  some  comfort  to  you;  and  if  you 
can  feel,  as  you  say  you  will  feel,  that  my  book  has 
a  message  especially  for  you,  I  shall  be  very  glad  and 
proud. 

"Yours  sincerely,  John  Sanbourne." 

When  he  re-read  the  typed  letter,  one  point  struck 
him  which  had  not  so  sharply  pierced  his  intelligence 
before.  The  effect  of  the  appeal  from  Barbara,  the 
miracle  of  its  coming,  and  the  poignant  obligation 
it  thrust  upon  him  had  been  too  overpowering  at 
first.  He  had  not  stopped,  after  breaking  short  his 
wild  hope  of  her  freedom,  to  dwell  on  the  strange- 
ness of  one  part  of  her  letter  above  another.  But 
now,  in  judging  his  own  phrases,  he  came  to  a  stop 
at  a  sentence  towards  the  end  of  the  page :  "I  trust 
this  may  be  of  some  comfort  to  you." 

"Won't  that  way  of  putting  it  sound  conceited*?" 


THE  LETTERS  119 

he  asked  himself.  But  no;  she  had  used  that  very 
word  "comfort"  in  her  letter.  As  he  remembered 
this,  the  thought  suddenly  woke  in  him  that  she  had 
written  as  a  woman  might  write  who  was  in  deep 
sorrow.  Yet  she  could  not  be  in  deep  sorrow.  She 
had  her  heart's  desire,  and  at  worst,  her  feeling  for 
the  man  who  was  gone — John  Denin — could  only  be 
a  mild,  impersonal  grief  that  his  life  had  to  be  the 
price  of  her  happy  love. 

He  had  longed,  in  writing  the  story  of  "The  War 
Wedding,"  to  show  Barbara  why  even  that  mild 
grief  was  not  needed,  because  in  giving  great  joy 
to  another  soul  a  woman  earned  the  right  to  her  own 
happiness.  Denin  could  not  bear  to  think  that  pity 
for  him  might  shadow  Barbara's  sunshine,  but  he 
had  not  dreamed  until  to-day  that  the  shadow  could 
be  dark.  Now,  the  more  intently  he  studied  her 
appeal  to  the  author  of  the  book,  the  more  difficult 
he  found  it  to  understand  her  state  of  mind. 

Barbara  spoke  of  herself  as  one  of  the  many 
women  whose  "sore  hearts"  ached  for  healing  be- 
cause they  were  losing  their  "dearest"  in  battle. 


120       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

And  she  said  that,  if  he  could  give  her  the  assurance 
she  asked  for,  the  story  of  "The  War  Wedding" 
would  seem  to  hold  a  personal  message,  making  her 
"future  life  bearable." 

What  a  generous  and  sensitive  nature  she  had, 
and  what  beautiful  loyalty,  to  mourn  sincerely  for  a 
man  she  had  never  loved,  but  to  whom  she  owed  a 
few  material  advantages !  It  was  wonderful  of  the 
girl,  and  he  worshiped  her  for  it.  His  sacrifice  for 
her  was  easier  because  of  this  warm  sense  of  her  grati- 
tude, and  he  kissed  the  paper  he  had  just  written  on 
for  her,  because  some  day  it  would  be  touched  by  her 
hands. 

"If  I  only  dared  to  say  more  to  comfort  her,  and 
beg  her  to  be  happy!"  he  thought.  But  the  one 
safe  way  had  been  to  make  his  answer  to  her  calmly 
impersonal,  perhaps  even  a  little  cold.  For  fear  he 
might  be  seized  with  an  irresistible  desire  to  add 
something  more,  something  from  his  heart  instead  of 
his  head,  Benin  put  the  letter  into  an  envelope  and 
sealed  it. 

Then,  however,  he  stumbled  upon  a  new  difficulty 


THE  LETTERS  121 

which  had  not  occurred  to  him  before.  He  was  in 
the  act  of  addressing  her  as  "Lady  Benin"  (since  she 
chose  to  keep  his  name),  when  his  heart  stood  still 
in  the  face  of  a  danger  he  had  barely  escaped. 

How  was  a  stranger  like  John  Sanbourne  to  know 
that  she  was  Lady  Benin*? 

If,  inadvertently,  he  had  written  the  name  thus, 
and  sent  the  letter  to  the  post,  even  so  slight  a  thing 
might  have  made  her  guess  the  truth.  Instead  of 
comforting,  he  might  have  plunged  her  into  humilia- 
tion and  despair. 

Barbara  had  not  spoken  of  herself  in  the  letter 
as  being  married.  For  all  John  Sanbourne  was  sup- 
posed to  know,  she  might  be  a  girl,  mourning  a 
brother  or  a  lover.  At  last  he  addressed  her  as 
"Mrs.  or  Miss  Benin,  Gorston  Old  Hall."  And 
with  several  other  letters  which  he  forced  himself  to 
write,  he  enclosed  the  stamped  envelope  in  a  note  to 
Eversedge  Sibley.  "Please  post  these  in  New 
York,"  he  begged.  "I  don't  care  to  have  every  one 
know  where  I  live." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

IT  was  the  day  he  finished  re-plastering  the 
house-wall,  that  the  celebrity  was  "discovered" 
by  Santa  Barbara. 

Benin  stood  half  way  up  a  ladder  with  a  trowel 
in  his  hand,  when  a  young  man  in  a  Panama  hat  and 
a  natty  suit  of  gray  flannels  came  swinging  jauntily 
along  the  path :  altogether,  a  "natty"  looking  young 
man.  He  would  probably  have  chosen  the  adjec- 
tive himself. 

"Good  morning!"  he  confidently  addressed  the 
lanky,  shirt-sleeved  figure  on  the  ladder.  "Do  you 
happen  to  know  if  Mr.  John  Sanbourne  is  at  home?" 

"I  am  John  Sanbourne,"  said  Denin,  making  no 
move  to  descend  the  ladder.  He  wanted  to  get  on 
with  his  work,  and  expected  the  newcomer's  errand, 
whatever  it  might  be,  would  be  over  and  done  with 
in  a  minute.  He  thought  that  the  young  man  had 

122 


THE  LETTERS  123 

probably  come  to  sell  him  an  encyclopedia  or  a  sew- 
ing machine,  because  the  only  other  visitors  he  had 
had — except  the  postman,  and  the  boy  from  the 
grocer — had  pertinaciously  urged  that  the  Mirador 
was  incomplete  without  these  objects. 

The  young  man  looked  horrified  for  an  instant, 
but  being  a  journalist  and  used  to  rude  shocks,  he 
was  able  hastily  to  marshal  his  features  and  bring 
them  stiffly  to  attention.  He  had  already  learned 
that  the  Miradofs  new  owner  was  "peculiar,"  a  sort 
of  hermit  whom  nobody  called  on,  because  he  did 
his  own  work,  wore  shabby  clothes,  and  made  no  pre- 
tense of  having  social  eminence.  Indeed,  it  had 
never  occurred  to  any  one  (until  the  idea  jumped 
into  the  reporter's  brilliant  brain)  that  a  person  who 
could  buy  and  inhabit  that  half  ruined  "doll's  house" 
could  be  of  importance  in  the  outside  world.  The 
journalist  it  was  who,  happening  to  meet  the  post- 
man near  the  Drake  place  that  morning,  saw  a 
huge  envelope  addressed  to  "John  Sanbourne."  He 
flashed  out  an  eager  question:  "Is  there  a  John 
Sanbourne  living  near  here*?"  He  was  answered: 


124       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

"Yes,  a  fellow  by  that  name  's  bought  the  Mirador" ; 
quickly  elicited  a  few  further  details,  and,  abandon- 
ing another  project,  arrived  when  the  postman  was 
out  of  the  way,  at  the  Mirador  gate.  It  was  a 
blow — severe  if  not  fatal — to  romance  to  find  John 
Sanbourne  splashed  with  whitewash  and  looking  as 
a  self-respecting  mason  would  be  ashamed  to  look. 
But  perhaps  he  was  a  socialist.  That  would  at  least 
make  an  interesting  paragraph. 

"Are  you  the  John  Sanbourne,  the  man  who 
wrote  'The  War  Wedding"?"  the  visitor  persisted. 

Denin  was  surprised  and  disconcerted.  "Why  do 
you  ask?"  he  sharply  answered  one  question  with 
another;  then  added,  still  more  sharply,  "And  who 
are  you?" 

"My  name  's  Reid.  I  work  for  a  San  Francisco 
paper,  and  I  'm  correspondent  for  one  in  New  York. 
If  you  wrote  the  book  that 's  made  such  a  wonder- 
ful boom,  my  papers  want  to  get  a  story  about 
you." 

"Thank  you.  That 's  very  kind  of  you  and  of 
them,"  said  Denin  coolly.  "But  I  have  n't  a  'story' 


THE  LETTERS  125 

worth  any  newspaper's  getting.  I  'm  sorry  you 
should  give  yourself  trouble  in  vain.  Yet  so  it  must 
be." 

"When  I  say  'a  story,'  I  mean  an  article — an  in- 
terview," Reid  explained  to  the  amateur  intelligence. 
"I  think,"  he  went  on,  beginning  to  find  possibilities 
in  the  hermit  and  his  surroundings  (voice  with 
charm  in  it :  fine  eyes :  striking  height :  peculiar  fad 
for  solitude,  etc.) — "I  think  I  see  my  way  to  some- 
thing pretty  good." 

"I  'm  afraid,"  Benin  insisted,  speaking  with  great 
civility,  because  he  had  suffered  too  much  to  inflict 
the  smallest  pin-prick  of  pain  upon  any  living  thing 
if  it  could  be  avoided.  "I  'm  afraid  I  must  ask  you 
not  to  rout  me  out  of  my  burrow  with  any  search- 
light. You  can  see  for  yourself  I  'm  no  figure  for  a 
newspaper  paragraph.  If  the  public  really  takes 
the  slightest  interest  in  me,  for  Heaven's  sake  leave 
them  to  their  illusions.  Please  write  nothing  about 
me  at  all.  But  I  can't  let  you  go  without  asking 
you  to  rest  and  drink  a  glass  of  lemonade.  I  'm 
ashamed  to  confess" — and  he  laughed — "that  I  've 


126       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

nothing  stronger  to  offer  you.  I  lead  the  simple  life 
here!" 

As  he  spoke  he  came  down  from  the  ladder,  trying 
not  to  show  inhospitable  reluctance,  and  invited  the 
reporter  to  sit  in  the  shade  of  the  veranda.  Reid, 
seeing  that  the  man  was  in  earnest,  not  merely  "play- 
ing to  the  gallery,"  showed  his  shrewd  journalistic 
qualities  by  acquiescence.  He  accepted  the  situa- 
tion and  the  lemonade,  and  kept  his  eyes  open.  He 
did  not  abuse  the  hermit's  kindness  by  outstaying  his 
welcome,  but  took  leave  at  the  end  of  fifteen  or 
twenty  minutes.  At  the  gate,  he  held  out  his  hand 
and  Sanbourne  had  to  shake  it  with  a  good  grace. 
Noticing  for  future  reference,  that  the  author  of 
"The  War  Wedding"  had  a  hand  as  attractive  as  his 
scarred  face  was  plain,  Reid  said  resignedly,  "Well, 
Mr.  Sanbourne,  thank  you  for  entertaining  me.  But 
I  'm  sorry  you  don't  want  me  to  write  about  you. 
Sure  you  won't  change  your  mind?" 

"Sure,"  echoed  Sanbourne,  and  went  thankfully 
back  to  put  the  last  touches  on  the  house-wall. 
About  half  an  hour  later  the  work  was  finished, 


THE  LETTERS  127 

and  he  had  time  to  remember  that  several  letters  and 
papers,  brought  by  the  postman,  were  lying  un- 
opened. Standing  on  his  ladder,  he  had  asked  to 
have  the  budget  left  on  the  balcony  table.  Then  he 
had  forgotten  it,  for  he  dreaded  rather  than  looked 
forward  to  the  letters  of  his  unknown  correspondents ; 
and  even  if  Barbara  acknowledged  his  answer  (which 
seemed  to  him  unlikely)  it  would  be  many  days  be- 
fore he  could  expect  to  hear  from  her. 

This  time  there  was  the  usual  fat  envelope, 
stuffed  with  smaller  ones,  forwarded  by  Eversedge 
Sibley;  also  there  was  a  letter  from  Sibley  himself. 
Denin  put  off  delving  into  the  big  envelope,  and 
opened  Sibley's.  Quite  a  friendship  had  developed 
between  them,  and  he  liked  hearing  from  the  pub- 
lisher, who  wrote  about  the  great  events  of  the  world 
or  advised  the  reading  of  certain  new  books,  which 
he  generally  sent  in  a  separate  package.  Some- 
times he  sent  newspapers,  too,  fancying  that  San- 
bourne  saw  only  the  local  ones.  They  were  hav- 
ing a  discussion  through  the  post,  the  American  try- 
ing to  instruct  the  Englishman  in  the  intricacies  of 


128       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

home  politics;  but  the  letter  which  Denin  now 
opened  did  not  refer  to  that  subject,  nor  did  it  fin- 
ish with  the  usual  appeal :  "When  will  the  call  to 
work  get  hold  of  you  again,  or  when  will  the  spirit 
move  you  to  think  of  writing  me  another  book*?" 

"Dear  Sanbourne,"  Sibley  began.  "This  is  an  in- 
terlude, to  the  air  of  'Money  Musk' !  Our  custom, 
as  you  may  vaguely  have  noticed  in  the  contract  I 
forced  you  to  sign,  is  to  make  royalty  payments  to 
our  authors  twice  a  year.  But  you  have  bought  a 
house  and  land,  and  Heaven  knows  what  all,  out  of 
your  advance,  you  tell  me.  Seems  to  me  you  can't 
have  left  yourself  much  margin.  You  mentioned 
the  first  day  we  met  that  you  were  a  poor  man ;  so  I 
have  unpleasant  visions  of  what  our  latest  star  author 
may  have  reduced  himself  to,  while  the  men  whose 
job  it  is  to  sell  his  masterpiece  are  piling  up  dollars 
for  his  publishers.  The  check  I  lay  between  these 
pages  (so  as  to  break  it  to  you  gently)  is  only  a  small 
part  of  what  we  know  the  'Wedding'  to  have  made 
up  to  date.  Never  in  all  my  experience  has  a  book 
advertised  itself  as  yours  seems  to  have  done.  One 


THE  LETTERS  129 

reader  tells  a  dozen  others  to  buy  it.  Each  one  of 
that  dozen  spreads  the  glad  tidings  among  his  or  her 
own  dozen.  So  it  goes !  The  'Wedding5  has  now 
been  out  three  months  and  is  in  its  tenth  edition,  the 
last  six  whacking  big  ones.  It  won't  stop  short  of  at 
least  a  million,  I  bet,  with  Canada,  England,  and  the 
Colonies  as  well  as  our  immense  public  here.  With 
this  assurance,  you  can  afford  to  use  the  present  check 
as  pin  money.  Yours  ever,  E.  S." 

Benin  turned  the  page,  and  saw  a  folded  slip  of 
yellow  paper:  a  check  payable  to  John  Sanbourne 
for  two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars. 

He  thought  no  more  about  the  journalist.  But 
the  journalist  was  busily  thinking  about  him.  Mr. 
Reid  was  not  writing  an  "interview"  with  Mr.  San- 
bourne,  because  he  had  promised  he  would  not  do 
that.  Sanbourne  had,  luckily  for  Reid,  let  his  re- 
quest stop  there.  Reid  considered  himself  morally 
free  to  write  something  else,  which  did  not  compose 
itself  on  the  lines  of  an  interview.  He  wrote  what 
he  called  "A  Study  of  John  Sanbourne,  Author  and 
Hermit,"  making  it  as  photographic,  yet  at  the  same 


130       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

time  as  picturesque,  as  he  knew  how.  Just  as  an 
"artist  photographer"  takes  dramatic  advantage  of 
high  lights  and  shadows,  so  did  Reid  the  reporter  put 
to  their  best  use  the  splashes  of  whitewash  on  his 
celebrity's  black  hair  and  scarred  brown  face,  and 
spots  of  pink  paint  on  his  shirt  sleeves.  He  de- 
scribed the  Mirador  as  it  had  been  after  the  fire,  and 
as  it  had  become  since  John  Sanbourne  bought  the 
little  ruined  "doll  house"  with  its  patch  of  garden 
walled  off  from  the  Drake  (once  the  Fay)  place, 
near  Santa  Barbara.  He  mentioned  his  own  sur- 
prise at  finding  so  famous  a  man  voluntarily  hidden 
from  the  world,  in  these  quaint  surroundings,  when, 
if  he  chose,  he  could  be  feted  by  "everybody  who  was 
anybody''  for  miles  around. 

When  Reid  had  finished  his  "study,"  he  was  as 
proud  of  it  as  his  victim  was  of  the  plaster  and  paint 
on  the  Mirador  walls.  It  was  too  good,  thought  the 
journalist,  for  a  local  paper.  Why,  it  was  a  regular 
"scoop" !  He  would  send  it  "on  spec."  to  the  New 
York  Comet  which  occasionally  accepted  an  article 
from  him.  This,  he  had  no  doubt,  would  not  only 


THE  LETTERS  131 

be  accepted  but  snapped  at,  for  the  great  Sunday 
supplement  which  the  Comet  brought  out.  In  that 
case,  he  would  get  a  good  price  for  his  work,  far 
better  than  local  pay,  to  say  nothing  of  the  kudos; 
and  as  a  queer  fish  like  Sanbourne  was  n't  likely  to 
"run  to"  the  Sunday  Comet,  or  to  a  press-cutting 
subscription,  he  would  probably  never  see  the 
"stuff."  This  thought  relieved  Reid  of  his  one  anx- 
iety. Sanbourne  had  trusted  him.  And  the  dif- 
ference between  an  "interview"  and  a  "study"  was 
perhaps  too  subtle  for  an  outsider  to  understand. 

As  it  happened,  Mr.  Reid  was  right  in  all  three 
of  his  suppositions.  The  New  York  Comet  did  ap- 
prove his  manuscript :  theirs  was  a  dignified  cross  be- 
tween accepting  and  snapping.  John  Sanbourne 
did  not  see  the  Sunday  supplement,  nor  did  he  take 
in  any  of  the  many  newspapers  which  quoted  it.  He 
did  not  subscribe  to  a  press-cutting  bureau;  and  the 
agencies  which  had  applied  for  his  patronage,  being 
discouraged  by  his  silence,  did  not  send  to  him. 

Eversedge  Sibley,  on  the  other  hand,  always  saw 
the  Sunday  supplement  of  the  Comet,  which  special- 


132       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

ized  on  literary  subjects.  He  read  the  "Study  of 
John  Sanbourne,  Author  and  Hermit,"  and  was  as- 
tonished that  so  retiring,  almost  mysterious  a  person, 
had  granted  it.  On  further  deliberation,  however, 
Sibley  decided  that  material  for  the  article  must  have 
been  got  on  false  pretenses.  He  read  the  "stuff" 
through  again,  and  felt  that,  though  interesting  to 
the  public,  Sanbourne  would  think  it  hateful.  If 
a  journalist  had  caught  him  unawares,  he  would  be 
distressed  to  find  his  privacy  so  violated;  and  Ever- 
sedge  Sibley  did  not  want  Sanbourne  to  be  distressed. 
Consequently  he  did  not  forward  the  supplement, 
nor  the  cutting  his  firm  afterwards  received  of  it; 
and  as  no  one  else  thought  of  sending,  Sanbourne 
continued  peacefully  to  forget  his  morning  visit 
from  a  journalist.  Even  the  fact  that  he  was  stared 
at  in  the  street  more  intently  than  he  had  been  at 
first,  when  an  errand  took  him  into  town,  did  not  re- 
mind him  of  the  call  or  cause  him  to  put  two  and 
two  together.  He  did  not  indeed  know  that  he  was 
being  stared  at.  He  did  not  look  much  at  people, 
because  he  did  not  wish  to  be  looked  at.  And  his 


THE  LETTERS  133 

thoughts  were  more  for  the  place  and  the  scenery 
which  Barbara  had  loved  and  he  was  learning  to  love 
than  for  his  fellow  creatures,  who  seemed  infinitely 
remote  from  him. 

"How  wonderful  that  that  John  Sanbourne  who 
wrote  The  War  Wedding5  should  be  here,  and  none 
of  us  even  dare  try  to  get  to  know  him!"  some 
women  said,  when  they  had  seen  extracts  from  Reid's 
"study"  in  newspapers  they  took  in.  These  women 
thought  Sanbourne's  scars  actually  attractive. 
Others  announced  that  they  did  n't  believe  the  man 
was  the  real  John  Sanbourne.  There  must  be  some 
mistake.  This  one  didn't  look  like  a  gentleman. 
At  least  his  clothes  did  n't.  And  anybody  could  pre- 
tend to  be  John  Sanbourne  if  they  liked.  Lots  of 
frauds  did  that  sort  of  thing  when  a  novel  by  an 
unknown  author  made  a  great  success. 

John  Sanbourne  felt  richer  with  his  new  check 
and  the  astonishing  prospect  held  out  by  Sibley  than 
Sir  John  Benin  had  ever  felt  at  Gorston  Old  Hall 
with  his  big  income.  But  his  one  extravagance  was 
to  buy  some  books  and  shelves  to  put  them  on.  In 


134       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

that  way  he  soon  collected  all  his  old,  best  friends 
around  him;  for  that  was  the  one  joy  of  having 
books  for  friends.  No  matter  where  you  went,  you 
could  always  send  for  them  and  have  them  with  you. 
You  could  never  be  entirely  alone  in  the  world. 

When  the  time  came  that  Denin  might  receive  a 
letter  from  Barbara,  he  tried  not  to  think  of  it. 
He  said  to  himself  that  he  knew  it  would  not  come, 
that  he  ought  not  to  want  it  to  come,  that  if  it  did 
come,  it  would  only  prolong  the  agony.  He  read 
hard,  and  worked  hard  in  the  garden,  and  took  long 
walks,  though  he  limped  slightly  still,  for  he  was 
losing  the  worst  of  his  lameness  and  might  actually 
hope  to  become  in  the  end  (as  the  German  surgeon 
had  prophesied)  as  "good  a  man  as  he  had  ever 
been."  Perhaps  in  some  ways — ways  of  the  mind 
and  spirit — he  was  better.  But  there  was  no  soul- 
doctor  to  judge  of  such  improvement.  Certainly 
Denin  was  unable  to  do  so  himself. 

Nothing  on  earth  or  in  heaven  could  distract  his 
thoughts  from  the  letter,  however,  when  it  began  to 
loom  before  him  as  a  possibility.  Constantly  he 


THE  LETTERS  135 

found  himself  saying,  "To-morrow  it  might  come." 
And  then,  "To-day." 

When  it  was  "to-day,"  he  began  courageously  to 
plan  an  excursion  which  for  some  time  he  had  been 
meaning  to  make.  If  he  left  early  in  the  morning — 
long  before  the  postman  was  due — he  need  not  get 
back  till  night.  But  his  strength  failed  at  the  mo- 
ment of  starting.  He  went  no  farther  than  the  gate. 
Should  there  be  a  letter  while  he  was  away,  the 
postman  must  leave  it  on  the  table  outside  the  house, 
for  the  door  would  be  locked.  Then,  Benin  ar- 
gued, if  any  mischievous  person  should  slip  in  and 
steal  it,  he  would  never  know  what  he  had  missed. 
And  he  was  rewarded  for  staying.  The  letter  did 
come.  It  was  only  when  he  held  it  in  his  hand  that 
he  realized  how  desperately  he  had  wanted  it,  what 
a  black  dungeon  the  beautiful  summer  day  of  sun- 
shine would  have  been  without  it. 

"Thank  you  more  than  I  can  say  for  answering 
me !"  he  read.  "You  wrote  me  on  the  very  day  you 
had  my  letter,  and  I  am  doing  the  same  with  yours, 
for  it  has  just  arrived.  Now,  since  you  have  told 


136       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

me  you  heard  the  voices  with  the  ears  of  your  own 
spirit^  the  book  can  be  mine — my  own  message, 
meant  for  me.  Perhaps  others  say  this  very  same 
thing  to  you — though  it  seems  that  no  one  can  need 
such  a  message  as  much  as  I  need  it.  I  wonder  if 
it  would  be  wrong  to  tell  you  why? 

"Maybe  your  first  thought  when  I  ask  that  ques- 
tion, will  be — why  should  I  want  to  tell  you?  But 
if  I  do  tell  you,  then  you  will  see  why.  We  are 
strangers  to  each  other,  living  thousands  of  miles 
apart,  and  we  shall  never  meet;  yet  because  you  have 
written  this  book,  I  feel  that  you  are  my  friend. 
You  have  helped  me  as  no  one  else  could.  And  I 
have  no  one  else  to  help  me  at  all — no  one. 

"Yes,  I  must  tell  you ! — for  in  one  way  I  and  the 
girl  in  your  story  have  lived  through  the  same  ex- 
perience. Only  there  is  one  great  difference  between 
us.  She  did  n't  love  the  man  she  married,  and  that 
hurt  her,  in  thinking  of  him  afterwards  when  he 
was  dead.  I  loved  the  man  I  married  so  much  that 
it  is  killing  me  because  I  didn't  tell  him.  There 
was  a  reason  why  I  did  n't  tell.  It  seemed  then  that 


THE  LETTERS  137 

I  could  not.  But  oh,  do  you,  who  know  so  much, 
think  he  understands  now,  and  does  he  still  care,  or 
is  he  too  far  away1?  Could  he  understand  my  hav- 
ing done  a  thing  since  he  went,  a  thing  that  looks 
like  disloyalty — treason — to  his  memory,  though  in- 
deed it  was  not  that.  It  was  done  to  save  a  life. 
You  will  say,  'This  is  a  mad  woman  who  asks  me 
such  questions.'  But  I  almost  wish  I  were  mad.  If 
I  were,  I  mightn't  realize  how  I  suffer.  Yours — 
Barbara  Benin." 

He  was  stunned  by  the  letter,  and  its  revelation. 
She  had  loved  him. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  thought  filled  the  man's  soul  and  sur- 
rounded it  as  water  fills  and  surrounds  a  ring 
fallen  into  the  sea.  Barbara  had  loved  him.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  world  outside  that  thought. 

At  first,  it  caught  him  up  to  heaven,  and  then 
just  as  he  saw  the  light,  it  flung  him  down  to  hell. 

Fool  that  he  had  been,  never  to  see  the  truth  under 
her  reserve,  while  seeing  would  have  meant  stand- 
ing by  her,  keeping  her  forever !  But  he  had  let  her 
go,  and  it  was  too  late  now,  even  for  explanations. 
He  had  shut  an  iron  door  between  them ;  and  stand- 
ing with  her  on  the  other  side  of  that  door  was  a 
man  who  called  her  his  wife.  There  was  the  situa- 
tion ;  and  he,  by  his  silence,  had  created  it.  He  was 
condemned  to  perpetual  silence ;  for  it  was  the  wild- 
est, most  hopeless  mockery  of  all  which  brought  to 
John  Sanbourne  a  knowledge  of  Barbara's  love  for 

John  Denin. 

138 


THE  LETTERS  139 

Fate  had  been  laughing  at  him  while  he  wrote  his 
book  with  a  message  of  peace  for  her,  laughing 
wicked  and  cruel  laughter,  because  through  the  mes- 
sage he  was  to  come  into  touch  with  Barbara  and 
learn  the  tragic  failure  of  his  sacrifice.  That  seemed 
to  Benin  a  vile  trick  for  life  to  play  upon  a  man, 
and  whipped  by  the  seven  devils  of  thwarted  love 
which  had  entered  into  him  he  cursed  it;  cursed  life 
and  fate,  himself  and  Trevor  d'Arcy,  and  was  ready 
to  deny  Justice,  even  Justice  blindfolded. 

His  heaven  lasted  for  a  moment  at  best.  For 
many  hours  Cain  and  Abel  in  him  fought  each  other 
in  hell.  But  he  had  been  down  in  depths  well  nigh 
as  black,  and  had  struggled  out  to  the  light.  Re- 
membering this,  he  struggled  out  once  more,  at  last, 
and  perceived  that,  somehow,  to  his  own  wondering 
surprise,  he  had  stumbled  up  to  a  higher  level  and  a 
stronger  footing  than  before.  Within  distant  sight 
he  visioned  those  serene  mountain  tops  where  light 
is,  the  light  that  never  shines  on  sea  or  land  for 
those  who  have  not  suffered. 

Only  a  short  time  ago  he  had  begun  daily  to  real- 


140       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

ize  and  tell  himself  that  strength  and  steadfastness 
alone  really  mattered ;  that  suffering  was  but  a  flame 
which  passed.  This  was  still  true,  as  true  as  it  had 
ever  been.  A  man  could  choose  whether  the  flame 
should  consume  or  purify  him  in  its  passing;  and 
here  and  now  the  immediate  hour  of  his  choice  was 
on  the  stroke.  At  the  end  of  that  day  of  turmoil, 
Denin  seemed  still  to  be  looking  down  at  himself, 
as  a  crouching  prisoner  in  a  dark  underground  cell. 
Yet  he  knew  that  he  was  his  own  prisoner,  not  really 
a  helpless  captive  of  the  Fate  he  had  cursed.  Fate 
had  no  power  after  all  to  make  men  prisoners.  It 
was  their  business  to  find  this  out,  and  to  prove  that 
they  had  only  to  release  themselves,  in  order  to  be 
free.  He  felt  this  to  be  an  abstract  fact  of  life; 
and  if  he  meant  to  live  he  must  make  it  concrete. 

The  underground  hole  where  he  so  miserably 
crouched  was  but  the  cellar  of  his  darkest  self.  If 
he  but  thought  so,  he  had  strength  enough  in  him 
to  fight  his  way  up  into  the  high,  bright  tower 
which  was  also  himself,  a  tower  with  a  wide  view  on 
every  side,  over  the  sunlit  mountains  from  whose 


THE  LETTERS  141 

peaks  he  could  already  catch  some  glimmering  vision. 

Even  the  thought  of  the  mountain  tops — that  they 
were  there,  shining,  and  always  had  been  and  always 
would  be — made  Benin  lift  his  head  and  draw  deep 
breaths  into  his  lungs.  That  part  of  him  which  had 
yearned  to  write  the  book  for  Barbara  and  had  con- 
quered difficulties  to  write  it,  came  like  a  strong 
brother  to  the  rescue  of  a  weak  brother  and  pulled 
him  up  by  main  force  out  of  the  dark.  He  tried  to 
reassure  himself,  over  and  over,  that  he  need  never 
again  crawl  back  into  the  darkness.  He  had  seen 
the  view  from  the  tower,  and  the  tower  was  his  to 
reach. 

Denin  had  not  worked  out  for  his  own  guidance 
any  clear-cut  philosophy  of  life.  He  had  just  stum- 
bled along  with  strength  for  his  goal  mark,  trying 
now  and  then  to  recall  some  whisper  or  note  of  music 
he  had  caught  from  the  other  side  before  he  came 
back.  He  had  written  down  in  his  book,  for  Bar- 
bara, all  that  had  been  tangible  under  his  pen. 
But  now,  knowing  she  had  loved  him,  he  saw  how 
much  more  help  she  needed  than  he  had  given, 


142       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

and  how  much  more — how  very  much  more — he 
owed  her. 

Not  that  he  had  deliberately  stood  aside  and  left 
the  girl  unprotected.  When  in  the  German  hospital 
he  had  drifted  back  to  a  knowledge  of  realities  past 
and  present,  he  had  seen  almost  at  once  that,  even 
if  the  news  were  unwelcome,  he  must  not  let  his 
wife  live  in  ignorance  that  she  was  still  bound.  It 
was  only  after  hearing  from  Severne  of  Barbara's 
marriage  to  d'Arcy,  that  he  had  said,  "John  Benin 
is  dead  and  buried,  and  his  ghost  laid."  He  had 
meant  to  make  the  supreme  sacrifice  for  Barbara's 
good,  and  there  had  been  no  shadow  of  doubt  in  his 
mind  that  he  was  right  in  making  it.  Now  he  asked 
himself  if  even  then  it  might  not  have  been  best  to 
let  the  truth  come  out.  No  one  was  to  blame  for  the 
mistake  in  a  dead  man's  identity,  nor  for  what  had 
happened  afterwards  through  that  mistake.  Bar- 
bara would  have  had  a  hard  choice  before  her;  yet 
she  might,  if  she  possessed  strength  and  courage 
enough,  have  chosen  from  the  two  men  who  had 
come  into  her  life,  the  one  she  loved.  The  whole 


THE  LETTERS  143 

world  would  have  rung  with  the  tragic  story,  but  at 
the  end  Barbara  might  have  lived  down  the  tragedy. 
If  he  had  been  her  choice,  he  would  have  helped  her 
to  live  it  down,  by  the  gift  of  such  love  as  no  man 
had  ever  given  to  a  woman. 

As  it  was,  he  had  dared  to  play  the  potter.  He 
had  taken  the  clay  of  Barbara's  destiny  into  his  own 
awkward  hands,  to  shape  it  as  he  thought  best,  and 
he  had  let  the  vase  break  in  the  furnace.  He  could 
never  make  it  what,  but  for  his  meddling,  it  might 
have  been;  yet  he  must  piece  the  delicate  fragments 
together  if  he  could,  not  caring  for — not  thinking 
of — his  bleeding  hands. 

This,  then,  was  the  debt  Denin  owed  to  Barbara. 
And  to  pay  it  he  saw  that  he  must  begin  by  remaking 
himself,  before  he  could  give  her  anything  worth 
the  having.  He  must  become  a  thing  of  value,  in 
order  to  be  of  value  to  her.  Those  faint  whispers 
and  snatches  of  music  from  the  other  side  of  the 
hidden  river,  which  he  had  jumbled  into  "The  War 
Wedding,"  confusedly,  hurriedly,  fearing  to  lose 
their  echoes,  he  must  now  carefully  gather  up  again 


144       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

and  sort  out  with  method.  He  must  dip  into  his 
brain  where  half-remembered  thoughts  seethed  in 
solution.  He  must  see  the  rainbow  in  every  tear 
drop,  and  crystallize  it  into  a  jewel  for  Barbara. 
Thus  developing  himself,  he  might  have  some 
worthy  offering  for  her  at  last. 

He  could  not  write  that  day,  nor  the  next,  for  it 
seemed  that  the  only  things  worth  saying  were  the 
things  which  would  not  let  themselves  be  said,  things 
which  swept  through  the  background  of  his  mind 
like  a  flight  of  chiming  bells  in  the  night,  elusive  as 
waiting  souls  for  which  no  bodies  have  yet  been 
made.  But  though  he  could  not  write,  he  called 
thoughts,  which  he  had  once  seen  and  let  go,  to  come 
again  to  him.  He  sent  himself  back  along  the  road 
he  had  traveled  beyond  the  milestones.  He  searched 
by  the  wayside  for  beautiful  memories  he  had 
dropped  there,  and  some  of  them  he  found  grown  up 
tall  and  white  as  lilies  in  moonlight.  Whatever  he 
found  was  for  Barbara. 

On  the  third  night  after  the  revelation,  he  had 
gathered  something  to  give  her,  and  strength  enough 


THE  LETTERS  145 

to  feel  sure  he  would  not  put  into  his  letter  the 
question  which  must  not  be  asked:  "What  was  the 
reason  you  could  n't  tell  your  husband  that  you 
loved  him*?" 

Denin  wrote  with  a  typewriter,  as  he  had  written 
before,  on  blank  paper  with  no  address,  because  it 
was  better  for  Barbara  to  come  in  touch  with  him 
only  through  his  publishers.  In  that  way,  she  would 
be  spared  any  sense  of  constraint  she  might  have  to 
feel  in  knowing  that  he  lived  among  her  neighbors 
of  long  ago.  She  had  given  him  her  name  frankly, 
and  she  might  fear  some  inadvertent  mention  of  it  to 
people  she  had  met  as  a  child.  If  he  were  to  be  of 
real  use  to  her,  he  thought,  he  must  be  known  only 
as  a  distant  Voice,  an  Ear,  a  Sympathy,  almost  im- 
personal outside  his  letters. 

Denin  wrote  to  her  that  he  was  sure,  entirely  sure, 
the  man  she  loved  was  "not  too  far  away  to  know." 

"You  will  only  have  to  send  him  a  thought,  and 
it  must  reach  him  behind  that  very  thin  wall  we  call 
death.  The  way  I  imagine  it,  such  a  message  goes 
where  it 's  directed,  just  as  when  we  call  'Central' 


146       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

through  the  telephone.  They,  whom  we  speak  of  as 
dead,  have  their  own  work  to  do  and  their  own  life 
to  live,  so  perhaps  they  don't  think  of  us  every  mo- 
ment. But  surely  we've  only  to  call.  They  may 
not  see  us  in  the  flesh,  any  more  than  we  can  see 
them  in  the  spirit;  but  it  came  to  me  when  I  was 
very  close  to  the  other  side,  that  our  bodies  don't 
enclose  us  quite.  We  're  half-open  jewel-boxes,  that 
let  out  flashes  of  emerald,  or  sapphire,  or  diamond 
light,  according  to  the  strength  of  our  vibrations — 
or  aspirations,  if  you  like  (I  begin  to  realize  that 
these  are  much  the  same  thing!).  It  is  the  flashes 
of  light  which  are  seen  and  recognized  by  the  ones 
who  have  passed  farther  on.  The  lights  are  our 
images,  as  well  as  messages  for  them.  But  when  I 
say  'farther  on,'  it 's  only  a  figure  of  speech.  They 
are  not  far  off. 

"We  can  see  the  rain.  We  can't  see  the  wind, 
even  when  it  is  so  close  we  can  lean  on  it  like  a  wall. 
And  so  we  can  lean  on  their  love,  strong  as  a  wall, 
stronger  than  anything  visible  to  us,  because  love  is 
the  strongest  thing  there  is.  You  see,  life  would  n't 


THE  LETTERS  147 

be  worth  living  for  any  of  us — it  would  n't  have 
been  worth  creating — if  the  dead  really  died.  The 
glory  of  the  deathless  dead  lights  our  way,  with  the 
bright  deeds  they  have  done,  till  we  come  where  we 
can  see  for  ourselves  that  there's  no  dividing  line. 
'The  milestones  end.'  That 's  all.  They  're  not 
needed  any  more. 

"I  heard  other  people  talking  of  these  things 
when  I  went  where  the  milestones  end.  Since  then 
I  've  wondered  why  I  did  n't  know  the  things  before. 
Listen  to  your  hopes,  and  you  can  know  without 
waiting;  because  hope  is  the  voice  of  instinctive 
knowledge,  and  soul-instinct  is  what  we  were  born 
knowing.  Believe  this,  and  you  won't  have  to  stum- 
ble slowly  up,  as  I  did,  with  a  hod  full  of  old  pre- 
cepts on  my  back.  You  can  plane  down  from  the 
sky  with  your  arms  full  of  stars,  and  live  with  them, 
as  I  live  with  the  flowers  in  my  garden. 

"The  accident  which  put  me  into  close  touch  with 
what  we  call  'death,'  put  me  out  of  touch — mentally 
— with  life  on  this  side  for  a  while.  An  operation 
brought  me  back.  Just  as,  hovering  between  the 


148       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

known  and  the  unknown,  I  let  my  past  drop,  so  on 
my  return  to  it  I  had  for  a  while  no  memories  of 
the  borderland.  My  brain  busied  itself  picking  up 
lost  threads.  I  recalled  the  instant  when  I  thought 
I  was  meeting  death :  a  great  shock  when  all  supports 
fell  away  as  from  under  a  ship  that  is  launched,  and 
I  plunged  into  measureless  depths.  Beyond  that 
sensation,  there  was  blankness.  By  and  by  glimpses 
of  something  bright  came  and  went,  oftenest  in 
dreams.  The  effort  to  seize  their  meaning  waked 
me  with  a  start.  It  is  only  now  that  I  am  beginning 
to  hold  some  of  the  best  meanings,  I  think.  I  have 
come  back  with  a  little  star-dust,  even  I;  and  by  its 
glimmer,  in  good  moments,  I  try  to  interpret  my  own 
dreams. 

"If  I  read  them  rightly,  I  've  told  you  only  an 
old,  old  truth  in  saying  that  there  should  be  no  such 
word  as  death,  or  grief  for  it  among  the  living. 
We  've  only  to  lift  the  veil  of  Death  to  see  the  face 
of  Life — a  wonderful,  shining  face  with  no  pain  in 
its  smile.  Looking  into  its  eyes,  what  we  do,  in- 
stead of  'dying,'  is  to  flow  over  our  own  narrow  limi- 


THE  LETTERS  149 

tations  as  growing  vines  flow  over  the  high  wall  of  a 
little  garden.  We  escape  out  of  bounds  into  the 
boundless  and  are  part  of  it. 

"Don't,  then,  let  the  life  of  the  man  you  have 
loved  be  darkened  by  feeling  that  he  has  darkened 
yours.  Stand  up,  lift  your  head,  and  you  '11  see  how 
your  sorrow  will  have  to  lie  down  at  your  feet  as 
shadows  lie." 

When  Benin  ended  his  letter,  he  found  that  in 
trying  to  help  Barbara,  he  had  helped  and  heartened 
himself.  He  had  unfolded  a  flag  and  waved  it  to 
the  sky. 

He  went  out,  though  it  was  after  midnight,  and 
posted  the  letter.  Later,  he  was  able  to  sleep  as  he 
had  not  slept  since  the  night  he  wrote  the  last  words 
of  his  book.  As  usual  he  dreamed  of  Barbara,  but 
this  time  it  was  a  new  dream.  He  saw  himself 
painting  her  portrait;  and  when  he  waked  in  the  sun- 
rise he  wondered  why  he  had  never  tried  to  paint 
such  a  likeness  from  memory.  He  could  see  her  as 
clearly  before  him  as  though  she  had  come  to  the 
door,  opened  it,  and  looked  at  him. 


150       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

The  thought  gave  him  something  more  to  live  for. 
He  would  do  the  picture,  and  so  bring  Barbara  her- 
self to  the  Mirador  where,  guessing  nothing  of  the 
truth,  she  sent  her  thoughts  to  John  Sanbourae. 


CHAPTER  X 

IT  seemed  to  Denin  that  he  knew  the  day  and 
even  the  moment  when  his  letter  reached  Bar- 
bara. 

He  was  working  on  her  portrait,  to  which  he  gave 
every  instant  of  his  spare  time  between  dawn  and 
dusk.  A  strange,  elusive  impression  of  a  girl  it  was ; 
a  girl  in  white  looking  through  a  half-open  door. 
She  stood  in  shadow,  but  leaning  forward  a  little  so 
that  her  eyes  and  hair  and  a  long  fold  of  her  dress 
caught  the  light.  Benin's  portrait  work  before  had 
been  done  with  charcoal  or  colored  chalk.  Such 
mediums  were  too  crude,  however,  for  this  labor  of 
his  love.  He  was  trying  pastels,  and  had  expected 
to  make  many  false  starts  and  failures.  But  he  had 
only  to  open  the  door  to  see  the  girl  standing  just 
outside,  looking  straight  at  him  with  smoke-blue  eyes 
under  level  brows  and  warm  shadow  of  copper-beech 
hair;  so  after  all  he  could  not  go  wrong  with  his 


152       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

work.  He  had  but  to  paint  what  he  saw,  and  the 
picture  took  life  quickly,  as  his  book  had  taken  life, 
because  it  was  easier  to  go  on  than  to  stop.  One 
evening,  he  was  straining  his  eyes  for  the  last  ray  of 
daylight,  when  a  blue  flash  seemed  to  leap  from  the 
eyes  of  the  portrait.  He  could  hardly  believe  that 
it  was  only  an  illusion  of  an  overworked  optic  nerve. 
It  was  as  if  Barbara  had  somehow  found  out  about 
the  portrait,  and  compelled  it  to  speak  for  her,  to 
tell  him  something  she  wished  to  say. 

"She  has  got  the  letter!"  was  the  thought  that 
compelled  his  mind  to  accept  it.  And  then — "She 
will  answer  at  once." 

The  difference  in  time  between  Santa  Barbara 
and  Gorston  Old  Hall  was  about  twelve  hours;  and 
fifteen  days  ago,  he  had  posted  his  letter.  It  was 
just  possible,  even  in  war-time  delays,  that  it  had 
reached  her,  he  calculated,  as  the  eyes  of  the  portrait 
held  him  spellbound. 

When  the  picture  was  finished,  he  took  its  meas- 
urements and  ordered  a  glass  to  protect  the  fragile 
colors,  delicate  as  the  microscopic  plumes  of  a  moth's 


THE  LETTERS  153 

wing.  But  ne  could  not  content  himself  with  any 
design  for  a  frame.  He  went  to  shop  after  shop, 
and  even  traveled  as  far  as  Los  Angeles,  in  the  hope 
of  finding  the  right  thing.  But  nothing  was  right 
as  a  frame  for  Barbara.  The  handsomer  a  frame 
was,  the  more  conventional  and  banal  it  looked  in 
Denin's  eyes,  when  he  tried  to  associate  it  with  her. 
At  last  he  decided  to  carve  out  the  frame  with  his 
own  hands,  from  the  beautiful  fluted  redwood  of  the 
great  sequoias  of  California :  wonderful,  ruddy  wood 
with  an  auburn  sheen  and  a  wave  running  through 
it  like  that  of  Barbara's  hair. 

The  idea  seized  him  and  brought  extraordinary 
delight.  He  took  three  lessons  from  an  astonished 
cabinet-maker  of  whom  he  was  able  to  buy  the  red- 
wood, and  then  with  confidence  and  joy  began  his 
work.  In  two  days  it  was  finished,  and  the  picture 
in  place.  It  was  almost  as  if  he  had  built  a  house 
for  Barbara,  and  she  had  come  to  live  in  it,  and  look 
out  of  the  door  at  him. 

The  portrait  was  half  life-size ;  and  rimmed  in  its 
rich  fluted  setting  of  redwood  a  thousand  years  old, 


154       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

it  was  of  exactly  the  right  length  and  shape  to  hang 
on  the  door  of  child-Barbara's  bedroom — his  bed- 
room now.  It  was  for  that  place  he  had  planned  it, 
because  in  these  days  he  had  lost  the  unbroken  pri- 
vacy of  his  first  weeks  at  the  Mirador.  John  San- 
bourne  had  been  "discovered,"  and  without  churlish- 
ness was  unable  to  remain  any  longer  a  hermit.  He 
went  nowhere,  except  for  the  long,  solitary  walks 
he  loved,  and  refused  all  invitations,  but  he  could 
not  lock  his  gate  against  the  three  or  four  kindly 
persons  who  ventured  with  the  best  intentions,  to 
"dig  him  up"  and  "keep  him  from  being  lonely." 
His  memory-portrait  of  Barbara  was  too  strikingly 
like  her,  in  its  strange  impressionist  way,  not  to  be 
in  danger  of  recognition  by  some  old  acquaintance 
of  her  childhood.  Besides,  a  picture  of  his  love, 
even  if  unrecognized,  was  far  too  sacred  to  be  seen 
by  stranger  eyes.  In  Benin's  bedroom  the  smiling 
visitant  was  safe.  No  one  but  himself  ever  went 
there.  And  with  the  heavy  frame  firmly  clamped  to 
the  door  panels,  the  effect  of  the  girl  gazing  out  into 
the  room  was  thrillingly  intensified  for  Denin. 


THE  LETTERS  155 

Thus  hung,  the  portrait  was  opposite  his  camp  bed; 
and  when  he  waked  at  sunrise,  Barbara  and  he  looked 
at  each  other. 

The  picture  had  been  in  its  place  for  a  day  when 
her  letter  came,  a  very  thick  letter ;  and  with  the  en- 
velope uncut  he  went  up  to  sit  before  her  likeness 
and  read  what  she  had  to  say  to  John  Sanbourne. 

"You  are  a  lifeline  thrown  to  me !"  he  read.  "I 
grasp  it  thankfully.  I  wonder  if  you  will  think  me 
a  silly,  sentimental  creature,  if  I  tell  you  that  even 
before  I  opened  your  letter  a  strong  golden  current 
seemed  to  come  out  through  the  envelope  into  my 
fingers,  and  up  my  arm?  If  you  were  just  an  or- 
dinary friend,  a  man,  living  near  me,  I  should  n't 
be  able  to  say  this  to  you,  or  tell  you  that  I  put  your 
letter  like  a  talisman  inside  my  dress,  so  as  to  keep 
it  near  me,  and  not  lose  the  sense  of  its  influence 
after  I  had  read  it  three  times  over.  But  to  you  at 
your  distance  I  can  tell  many  things  that  are  sacred, 
because  I  'm  only  a  shadow  to  you,  not  a  flesh-and- 
blood  woman,  with  all  my  faults  and  foolishnesses 
under  your  eyes  to  be  judged.  I  'm  a  shadow  to 


156       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

you,  and  I  don't  mind  being  a  shadow,  because  it 
gives  me  freedom  and  liberty.  Yet  I  must  n't  abuse 
that  liberty,  and  deceive  you,  my  friend  so  far  off — 
and  so  near.  I  'm  afraid  that  I  have  deceived  you 
already,  and  asked  for  your  sympathy,  your  help, 
under  false  pretenses.  Perhaps  if  you  'd  known  the 
real  truth  about  me  and  my  life,  you  would  have 
written  me  a  terribly  different  letter.  Whenever  I 
am  feeling  the  comfort  of  it  most,  suddenly  that 
thought  pierces  through  me,  very  cold  and  deadly, 
like  a  spear  of  ice.  I  want  the  comfort — oh,  how  I 
want  it! — and  so,  to  make  sure  whether  I  have  the 
right  to  take  it  or  not,  I  am  going  to  tell  you  every- 
thing. You  will  not  be  bored,  or  think  me  egotistic. 
I  know  you  well  enough,  through  your  book  and 
your  letters,  to  be  sure  of  that.  When  you  have 
read  this,  you  will  be  able  to  judge  whether  I  can 
dare  to  claim  the  consolation  you  offer  me,  and 
whether  I  have  a  right  to  comfort  myself  with  those 
thoughts,  about  the  only  man  I  have  loved  or  shall 
ever  love.  Because,  I  have  given  another  man  a 
place  in  my  outer  life. 


THE  LETTERS  157 

"What  thought  comes  into  your  mind  when  you 
read  those  words — cold-hearted,  horrible,  disloyal 
words  ?  Do  you  slam  the  door  of  your  sympathy  in 
my  face,  and  turn  me  away?  No,  please,  please 
don't  do  that — anyhow  don't  do  it  quite  yet.  Wait 
till  I  've  explained  as  well  as  I  can — if  any  explana- 
tion is  possible. 

"I  want  you  to  know  all  the  truth  and  understand 
entirely,  so  I  must  even  tell  you  a  thing  that  seems 
absurd  to  tell.  It  would  be  absurd,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  thing's  consequences.  When  I  was  fourteen 
my  mother  and  I  came  away  from  America,  where 
we  'd  lived  ever  since  I  was  born,  came  to  live  in 
Paris,  though  she  is  English  by  birth.  A  cousin 
of  hers,  an  officer  in  the  British  army,  was  on  leave 
from  his  regiment  just  then.  He  ran  over  to  Paris, 
to  amuse  himself,  not  to  see  us;  but  as  he  knew  we 
were  there,  he  called.  He  was  twenty-seven — 
thirteen  years  older  than  I — and  I  thought  he  was 
like  all  the  heroes  of  all  the  novels  I  'd  ever  read,  in 
the  form  of  one  perfectly  handsome,  perfectly  fas- 
cinating man.  He  treated  me  like  a  child,  and 


158       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

teased  me  a  little  about  being  a  'flapper,'  but  that 
only  made  me  look  up  to  him  more,  because  he 
seemed  so  high  above  me,  and  wonderful  and  un- 
attainable, like  a  prince. 

"Perhaps  he  saw  how  I  felt,  and  gloried  in  it  as 
great  fun.  He  gave  me  his  picture  in  uniform,  and 
I  worshiped  it  humbly,  as  a  little  Eastern  girl  might 
worship  an  idol.  Soon  he  went  to  India,  but  I  saw 
him  once  again,  nearly  two  years  afterwards,  when  I 
was  almost  sixteen.  I  had  never  forgotten  my 
'prince,'  and  after  he  came  back  he  flirted  with  me 
— rather  cruelly,  I  think.  When  I  realized — just 
as  he  was  saying  good-by,  that  he  'd  only  been  play- 
ing a  little,  it  all  but  broke  my  heart — what  I 
thought  was  my  heart.  I  used  actually  to  enjoy  be- 
ing miserable,  and  telling  myself  I  should  never  love 
again — just  as  if  I  'd  been  a  grown-up  woman.  I 
was  even  angry  with  my  frivolous  self  when  I  found 
that  I  was  getting  over  it.  For  I  did  get  over  it 
very  soon,  and  before  I  was  seventeen  I  could  look 
back  and  laugh  at  my  childish  silliness.  That  was 


THE  LETTERS  159 

over  five  years  ago,  for  I  am  twenty-two  now;  and 
all  my  real  life  has  come  since  then. 

"My  mother  and  I  were  poor,  until  a  little  while 
ago.  She  is  very  good  really  and  very  charming, 
and  absolutely  unselfish,  so  I  'm  not  picking  flaws 
in  her  if  I  have  to  explain  to  you  that  she  was  selfish 
for  me.  Being  English  herself,  she  has  always 
thought — in  spite  of  marrying  an  American  and  go- 
ing to  live  in  America — that  there 's  nothing  quite  so 
good  in  the  world  as  the  best  kind  of  English  life. 
By  the  'best  kind,'  she  means  life  among  the  aris- 
tocracy, in  country  houses,  and  in  London  in  the 
season.  She  made  up  her  mind  before  I  was  eight- 
een that  she  wanted  me  some  day  to  marry  a  man 
who  could  give  me  just  that  life.  I  used  to  laugh 
then,  when  she  mapped  out  my  future.  It  seemed 
only  funny,  not  vulgar  and  horrid  to  talk  about 
marrying  some  vague,  imaginary  man  for  his  title 
and  money;  but  when  Mother  took  a  house  in  Lon- 
don— a  better  house  than  we  could  afford — and  went 
into  debt  to  buy  me  heaps  of  lovely  clothes,  and 


160       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

fussed  and  schemed  to  get  me  presented  and  dragged 
into  the  'right  set,'  I  began  to  be  ashamed. 

"Before  we  had  been  in  London  very  long  I  met  a 
man  who  was  different  from  any  one  I  had  ever  seen 
before.  From  the  first  night,  when  we  were  intro- 
duced at  a  dance,  I  could  think  about  no  one  else. 
I  wish  I  could  make  you  understand  what  he  was 
like,  for  then  you  would  see  how  a  woman  who  cared 
about  him  could  never  stop  caring,  even  when  he  was 
dead;  for  no  other  man  could  at  all  take  his  place. 
He  was  n't  handsome,  not  even  what  people  would 
call  'good  looking,'  I  suppose,  and  he  did  n't  talk 
very  much.  But  somehow,  when  he  came  into  a 
room  with  lots  of  other  men  in  it,  all  the  rest  simply 
ceased  to  count.  He  was  very  tall,  and  a  great 
athlete.  Maybe  that  was  one  thing  that  pleased  a 
woman,  for  we  do  like  strength — we  can't  help  it. 
But  there  was  so  much  more  about  him,  magnetic 
and  sincere  and  splendid,  which  would  somehow 
have  made  one  feel  that  he  was  near,  if  one  were 
blind!  He  could  do  all  the  things  other  men  do 
better  than  any  of  the  others,  yet  he  had  thoughts 


THE  LETTERS  161 

such  as  none  of  the  others  had.  One  knew  that  a 
woman  could  have  no  moods  or  imaginings  beyond 
his  power  to  understand,  if  he  cared  enough,  because 
he  was  fine — 'fine'  in  the  French  meaning  of  the 
word — as  well  as  strong.  I  shall  never  forget  the 
first  time  he  looked  at  me.  We  had  just  been  in- 
troduced. There  was  something  wonderful  about 
his  eyes — I  could  hardly  tell  you  what  it  was.  But 
one  suddenly  felt  caught  and  drawn  into  them,  as 
into  a  vortex  in  deep,  still  water,  clear  and  pure, 
though  dark. 

"I  saw  that  he  rather  liked  me,  and  even  that 
meant  a  good  deal  from  him,  because  he  was  a  man's 
man,  and  did  n't  care  much  about  laughing  and  talk- 
ing with  lots  of  girls.  Perhaps  he  was  shy  of  them. 
Mother  saw,  too,  that  he  was  interested ;  and  that  was 
what  began  all  the  trouble,  because  he  was  exactly 
what  she  had  set  her  heart  on  for  me.  She  would  n't 
leave  him  alone  to  make  up  his  mind  whether  he 
really  wanted  to  see  more  of  me  or  not.  She  tried 
to  force  him  to  want  me.  She  did  all  she  could  to 
bring  us  together.  She  left  no  stone  unturned.  To 


162       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

me  it  was  sickening.  I  don't  know  whether  he  saw 
it  or  not,  but  I  was  so  afraid  he  might,  and  be  dis- 
gusted with  us  both,  that  it  made  me  feel  absolutely 
ill.  I  could  never  be  at  ease  with  him.  It  was 
hateful,  hateful  that  he  should  think  my  mother  and 
I  were  trying  to  '  catch '  him,  because  of  his  title 
and  money,  and  his  beautiful  old  house  which  every 
one  admired  and  talked  about,  and  heaps  of  women 
wanted. 

"After  we  had  known  him  for  awhile,  mother 
hinted  and  hinted  for  us  to  be  invited  to  stay  at  his 
place.  It  was  almost  like  asking  him  to  marry  me 
— at  least  I  felt  it  was.  He  was  obliged  to  get  up  a 
house-party  for  us,  so  that  we  should  n't  be  alone, 
for  he  had  no  mother  or  aunt  or  any  one  to  entertain 
for  him.  We  and  the  others  were  invited  for  a  week, 
but  the  day  everybody  was  going  on  somewhere  else, 
mother  was  taken  ill,  so  she  and  I  had  to  stay.  I 
was  sure  she  was  pretending,  though  she  would  n't 
confess,  and  I  was  almost  wild  with  misery  and 
shame,  I  loved  him  so  dreadfully. 

"For  days  mother  kept  her  room,  and  when  she 


THE  LETTERS  163 

came  down  she  seemed  so  weak,  that  of  course  he 
begged  us  not  to  think  of  going.  A  fortnight  more 
passed  like  that.  Then  the  first  rumors  of  war  be- 
gan; and  we  were  still  with  him  when  war  was  de- 
clared. That  same  day,  out  in  a  garden  by  a  lake 
we  both  loved,  he  told  me  he  cared,  and  asked  if  I 
would  marry  him  before  he  went  off  to  fight.  If 
only  I  could  have  been  sure  that  he  did  really  care, 
and  had  n't  been  drawn  on  by  things  mother  had 
said,  I  should  have  been  divinely  happy.  But  I 
was  n't  sure.  I  was  n't  at  all  sure.  And  the  shame 
and  suffering  I  felt,  and  the  fear  of  showing  that  I 
adored  the  ground  he  walked  on,  when  perhaps  he 
was  only  being  chivalrous  to  me,  made  me  behave 
like  a  beast.  I  was  just  a  sullen  lump.  I  said  yes, 
I  would  marry  him,  if  he  was  quite,  quite  sure  he 
wanted  me  to;  and  then  mother  came  out  of  the 
house,  and  straight  to  us,  as  if  she  had  known  ex- 
actly what  was  going  on  and  could  hardly  wait  to 
make  certain  of  him. 

"He  had  to  go  so  soon,  to  rejoin  his  old  regiment, 
and  leave  for  the  front,  that  he  got  a  special  license, 


164       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

and  we  were  married  when  we  had  been  engaged 
just  two  days.  If  he  did  love  me — and  looking  back 
I  almost  believe  now  that  he  did,  for  he  was  too  true 
as  well  as  strong  to  be  'trapped'  by  any  woman — I 
must  have  hurt  him  by  keeping  him  so  at  a  distance. 
He  could  n't  have  understood,  not  even  with  the 
wonderful  power  he  had  of  seeing  deep  into  people, 
all  the  way  through  to  their  souls.  But  now  I  have 
explained  to  you  about  mother,  you  will  under- 
stand. We  were  hardly  alone  together,  he  and  I, 
for  more  than  five  minutes  at  a  time.  I  always  made 
some  excuse  to  escape.  I  was  afraid  if  I  were  with 
him  for  long  I  should  break  down  and  be  a  fool. 
And  I  thought  if  he  did  n't  love  me  I  should  certainly 
disgust  him  by  crying.  Mother  had  told  me  often, 
when  she  was  training  me  to  'come  out'  in  society, 
that  a  man  must  love  a  woman  very  much,  not  to  be 
irritated  with  her  when  she  cries,  and  her  face 
crinkles  up  and  her  nose  gets  red. 

"After  our  wedding  he  was  with  me  for  about  an 
hour,  but  mother  was  with  us  too,  for  half  the 
time,  and  even  when  she  left  us  alone  in  an  ostenta- 


THE  LETTERS  165 

tious  sort  01  way,  I  could  think  of  nothing  to  say  to 
him,  nothing  at  all.  There  were  a  thousand  things 
in  my  brain,  will-o'-the-wisp  things,  but  my  tongue 
could  not  catch  up  with  them.  I  let  him  go.  And 
then  it  was  too  late. 

"Three  weeks  afterwards,  he  died,  saving  the  life 
of  a  friend.  So  now  you  see  what  your  book  meant 
to  me,  very  specially,  and  why  I  begged  you  to  tell 
me  whether  you  had  found  out  these  wonderful 
things  by  going  down  close  to  death  yourself.  You 
know  why  it  was  n't  enough  even  when  you  answered 
as  you  did  at  first.  I  longed  to  hear  whether  you 
thought  he  would  know  the  truth  about  me.  Your 
answer  to  that  question  is  all  I  hoped  for,  and  more. 
But  I  don't  deserve  it,  for  I  am  married  now  to  my 
cousin — the  one  I  so  childishly  made  an  idol  of  when 
I  was  a  little  girl. 

"You  are  shocked.  You  think  of  me  with  hor- 
ror. You  are  sorry  you  have  troubled  with  me  at 
all.  When  you  read  at  the  beginning  of  this  letter 
that  I  had  given  another  man  a  'place  in  my  life/ 
you  didn't  dream  that  I  had  married  him.  But 


166       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

so  it  is.  Eight  months-  after  my  love  died,  and  my 
youth  died  with  him,  I  was  my  cousin's  wife. 

"I  won't  tell  you  much  about  that.  Only  this: 
a  month  after  I  was  a  widow,  this  cousin  came  to 
England,  wounded.  My  mother  and  I  were  helping 
the  nurses  as  best  we  knew  how,  in  the  private  hos- 
pital of  a  friend.  My  cousin  arranged  to  be  sent 
there.  He  was  n't  seriously  hurt,  and  we  saw  some- 
thing of  him,  of  course.  He  was  immensely  changed 
from  the  old  days.  Because  he  might  have  been  a 
stick  or  a  stone  instead  of  a  man  for  all  I  cared,  he 
was  piqued,  I  suppose.  He  told  mother  that  he 
meant  to  make  me  fall  in  love  with  him  and  marry 
him  when  the  war  was  over.  And  when  he  had 
gone  back  to  the  front  again,  she  repeated  what  he 
had  said  to  me.  You  see,  she  did  n't  know  how  I 
had  loved  the  other,  so  she  was  surprised  at  the  way 
I  took  the  message.  I  could  n't  help  showing  that 
I  was  angry  because  he  had  dared.  He  wrote  to  me 
later,  more  than  once,  but  I  did  n't  answer  his  let- 
ters. 

"Months  afterwards,  he  was  horribly  wounded. 


THE  LETTERS  167 

As  he  had  no  near  relatives,  he  asked  to  have  us 
sent  for,  to  Boulogne.  He  was  supposed  to  be  dy- 
ing, and  we  could  n't  refuse  to  go.  We  never 
thought  of  refusing.  It  seemed  to  do  him  good  to 
see  us,  and  he  grew  better.  His  one  wish,  he  said, 
was  to  die  in  England.  We  brought  him  back — 
a  dreadful  journey.  He  grew  worse  again  on  the 
way,  and  we  were  obliged  to  stop  at  Folkestone  for 
two  weeks.  Then  we  got  him  to  London,  to  see  a 
great  specialist  for  spinal  operations.  The  surgeon 
said  that  such  an  operation  as  would  have  to  be  made 
— if  any — might  kill,  and  could  not  cure.  At  best, 
if  he  lived,  my  cousin  would  be  an  invalid  for  the 
rest  of  his  life.  Still,  without  an  operation,  he  must 
surely  die.  It  would  be  just  a  question  of  a  few 
weeks.  My  cousin  had  to  be  told  this  by  some  one, 
and  the  surgeon  thought  the  news  of  such  a  verdict 
had  better  be  broken  to  him  by  a  person  he  cared  for. 
Mother  felt  unable  to  bear  the  strain,  after  all  she 
had  gone  through.  She  is  n't  strong,  and  since  last 
August  she  has  changed  very  much.  It  seems  as  if, 
now  that  I  'm  'provided  for5  (as  she  says),  she  had 


168       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

let  herself  go.  That  day,  when  she  asked  if  I 
would  tell  my  cousin  what  the  surgeon  said,  I  was 
frightened  about  her,  she  trembled  so  much  and  sud- 
denly turned  so  deathly  pale,  with  bluish  lips,  and 
blue  circles  round  her  eyes.  Without  an  instant's 
hesitation  I  promised  to  speak  to  my  cousin.  But 
I  did  n't  realize  what  the  scene  would  be  like,  or  I 
could  hardly  have  faced  it.  In  his  weakness  he 
broke  down,  as  I  never  saw  any  one  else  break  down. 
He  said,  if  there  was  no  hope  of  his  being  made  into 
a  man  again,  what  good  would  it  bring  him  to  be 
cut  up  and  hacked  about  by  a  surgeon?  Besides, 
the  specialist  was  the  most  expensive  operator  in 
England,  and  he  could  n't  afford  such  a  costly  ex- 
periment. The  simplest  thing  would  be  to  put  a 
revolver  to  his  head,  or  take  an  overdose  of  some 
sleeping  draft,  and  so  to  be  out  of  his  misery  once 
and  for  all. 

"I  was  unnerved,  and  begged  him  to  keep  up  hope 
and  courage — not  to  think  about  the  money,  but  to 
let  us  lend  it.  My  beloved  one  left  everything  to 
me;  and  I  was  sure,  if  he  were  alive,  he  would  wish 


THE  LETTERS  169 

me  to  make  that  offer  to  a  brother  soldier.  I  felt, 
even  while  I  was  speaking,  that  if  I  were  in  my 
cousin's  place,  I  should  refuse  the  operation  because 
I  'd  rather  die  than  live  on  as  a  helpless  invalid,  a 
burden  to  myself  and  others.  But  it  would  n't  have 
been  human  not  to  encourage  that  poor  sufferer  to 
endure  existence,  if  he  could.  So  I  tried  my  best, 
and  I  was  very  excited  and  worked  up  by  the  sight 
of  his  emotion.  Suddenly  he  spoke  again.  He 
said  that  without  an  incentive  to  live,  he  would  n't 
trouble  about  the  operation,  and  the  only  incentive 
he  could  possibly  have  would  be  my  marrying  him, 
before  he  went  under  the  anesthetic.  Besides,  he 
could  n't  accept  money  from  me,  when  he  saw  no 
way  of  repaying  it,  unless  I  were  his  wife.  I  would 
rather  he  had  killed  me  than  force  me  to  make  such 
a  decision  as  that! 

"Perhaps  if  I  'd  been  calmer,  I  might  have  dared 
to  refuse,  realizing  that  his  love  of  life  was  very 
strong  indeed,  and  that  when  he  had  thought  things 
over,  he  would  surely  consent  to  the  operation  with- 
out the  horrible  sacrifice  he  asked  of  me.  But  I  was 


170       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

at  the  point  of  breaking  down,  myself.  I  could  n't 
see  anything  clearly.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  had 
to  save  a  life,  if  it  could  be  saved,  at  any  cost.  And 
then,  my  future  mattered  so  little  to  me  then.  The 
thought  in  my  mind  at  the  time  was,  that  to  be  the 
nurse  of  a  broken  soldier  who  'd  given  himself  for 
his  country,  was  at  least  a  mission  in  life.  As  it 
was,  I  had  none  left.  Also,  it  may  be  that  deep 
down  under  my  conscious  thought  was  another :  that 
according  to  the  surgeon's  expert  opinion,  my  cousin 
was  most  unlikely  to  live.  Why  not  give  him  the  in- 
centive he  asked  for,  to  face  the  ordeal,  and  let  him 
die  happy — since  that  one  thing  seemed  to  mean 
happiness  for  him1?  Almost  before  I  knew  what  I 
was  doing,  I  promised.  Then  it  was  sprung  upon 
me  the  next  day,  that  if  the  operation  were  to  be  done 
at  all,  it  must  be  done  soon.  I  had  to  keep  my  word. 
And  what  followed  was  a  nightmare :  a  second  wed- 
ding by  special  license,  a  bedside  marriage  with  a 
dying  man,  words  of  farewell,  and  the  surgeon  and 
anesthetist  arriving  in  their  white  robes — like  un- 
dertakers. 


THE  LETTERS  171 

"When  I  heard  that  he  had  come  through  the 
operation  with  his  life,  I  knew  instantly  what  wicked 
hope  must  have  been  hiding  in  my  heart.  A  sicken- 
ing disappointment  crept  like  poison  through  my 
blood.  I  had  to  do  my  duty,  though,  and  live  up  to 
the  obligations  I  'd  undertaken  so  recklessly.  After 
a  few  weeks,  mother  and  I  brought  the  invalid  home 
— to  the  home  my  beloved  one  had  given  me !  My 
life  seems  to  have  been  one  long  series  of  mistakes, 
but  I  don't  think  I  've  sinned  enough  to  deserve  the 
punishment  I  have  to  endure  now.  It  is  too  much 
for  me.  How  am  I  to  bear  it,  and  keep  my  soul's 
honor?  The  memory  of  my  love,  his  ways,  and  his 
looks  follow  me  from  room  to  room  of  his  house, 
and  walk  with  me  by  the  dear  lake,  and  in  the  gar- 
den paths.  I  might  have  found  peace  if  I  'd  left 
myself  a  right  to  live  with  that  memory.  But  I 
have  n't.  I  've  put  a  man  in  his  place,  a  man  whose 
body  is  helpless  as  that  of  a  little  child,  yet  whose 
soul  is  a  giant  of  hateful  jealousy.  He  is  jealous 
of  the  dead.  I  had  n't  guessed  a  man  could  be  like 
that.  I  must  tell  you  no  more.  I  must  try  not  to 


172       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

be  cruel  or  utterly  disloyal  both  to  living  and  dead 
— and  to  my  own  self-respect,  such  as  I  have  left. 

"I  have  kept  my  love's  name.  I  bargained  for 
that,  before  I  promised  my  cousin  to  marry  him.  It 
was  the  one  possession  I  could  n't  consent  to  give  up. 
If  you  will  stand  by  me  as  my  friend  after  all  this 
that  I  've  told  you — if  you  can  say  that,  in  spite  of 
everything,  I  have  any  right  to  the  comfort  you  Ve 
given,  address  your  next  letter  to  Lady  Denin. 

"Yours  gratefully,  from  the  heart,  whatever  your 
decision  may  be.  B.  D." 


CHAPTER  XI 

IF  he  would  "stand  by  her,  as  her  friend" ? 
Benin  could  not  wait  to  write.     He  cabled 
recklessly.     "You  have  done  no  wrong.     Take  all 
the  comfort  you  need.     What  you  suffer  is  not  pun- 
ishment.    It  is  martyrdom." 

"God  help  her!"  he  prayed.  "And  let  me  help 
her,  too — my  Barbara!" 

He  thought  of  the  girl  yearningly,  as  of  a  tor- 
tured child  with  the  heart  of  a  woman.  His  pain 
was  peace  compared  to  hers;  and  it  was  he — the 
blind  man  he  called  "clear-seeing" — who  had 
thrown  her  to  the  wolves.  If  he  had  not  been  too 
blind  to  see  her  love,  he  would  have  shown  his  for 
her  as  he  had  not  dared  to  show  it,  that  day  in  the 
old  garden.  Their  marriage  would  have  been  a  real 
marriage,  binding  Barbara  so  indissolubly  to  him 
that  not  to  save  a  life  could  she  have  broken  the 

bond.    By  this  time,  they  would  have  been  together 

173 


174       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

in  their  home,  and  not  his  memory  but  himself  would 
follow  her  through  the  rooms  and  by  the  dreamy  lake 
at  Gorston  Old  Hall.  Yet  even  so,  could  he  ever 
have  known  the  girl  from  tip  to  tip  of  her  soul's 
wings,  as  he  saw  himself  destined  to  know  her  now, 
with  six  thousand  miles  of  sea  and  land  and  one 
man's  death  and  another  man's  life  between  them? 
Would  he  have  learned  from  her  lips  and  eyes  the 
delicate  truth  of  an  exquisite  worship,  as  he  had 
learned  it  to-day  from  her  written  tribute  to  a  dead 
soldier? 

"My  God !  She 's  more  mine  than  she  could  ever 
have  been  if  I  hadn't  died  for  her!"  he  heard  him- 
self think  aloud.  After  all,  life  had  n't  been  laugh- 
ing behind  his  back,  while  he  wrote  the  book  for 
Barbara.  Though  Fate  snatched  her  away  from 
him  with  one  hand,  with  the  other  it  gave  her  back, 
irrevocably  and  forever.  It  .seemed  to  Denin  that, 
though  nothing  could  bring  them  together  in  body, 
nothing  could  ever  separate  them  in  spirit. 

When  he  wrote  that  same  day,  he  assured  her 
again,  as  he  had  assured  her  in  his  cable,  that  she 


THE  LETTERS  175 

had  a  right  to  every  one  of  the  words  of  comfort  he 
had  sent.  "And  you  have  a  right  to  lean  on  that  un- 
seen wall  of  love  I  told  you  about,"  he  repeated. 
"It  is  close  to  you,  and  meant  to  lean  on.  There 
can  be  no  disloyalty  to  any  one  in  resting  against  it. 
The  love  that  exists  for  you  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Great  Sea  is  too  vast  to  be  selfish.  It  asks  noth- 
ing from  you  that  you  ought  not  to  give.  It  only 
begs  you  to  be  happy,  for  there  's  a  kind  of  happiness 
without  which  we  fall  out  of  tune  with  the  universe. 
Don't  say  you  can  have  no  happiness  of  any  kind. 
Don't  think  it,  or  that  it  would  it  would  be  'wrong9 
or  light-minded  to  be  happy  if  you  could.  You  have 
seen  life  draped  in  black.  But  black  is  a  concen- 
tration of  all  colors.  No  opal  has  such  lights  as  a 
black  opal.  The  great  adventure  of  life  is  learning 
the  terror  and  the  beauty  and  the  splendor  of  it  all 
as  one  and  inseparable. 

"I  have  to  confess  that  I  'm  no  guide  for  you  or 
any  other.  I  am  just  groping  my  way  up,  out  of 
my  own  dark  places;  but  I  believe  that  great  secrets 
reveal  themselves  in  flashes,  just  as — in  some  mys- 


176       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

terious,  inspired  moments — a  sunrise  or  a  sunset  tells 
you  the  truth  of  a  thing  you  've  been  groping  for 
years  to  find  out.  This  obligation  to  your  own  soul 
(and  Heaven  knows  how  many  others),  the  obliga- 
tion of  happiness — is  one  secret  which  has  been 
opened  for  me  by  a  magic  key.  That  key  is  my 
strong  wish  to  be  of  use  to  you.  It  helps  me  to  feel 
that  I  may  help  you.  Perhaps  you  '11  care  to  know 
that*?  And  you  can  help  me,  and  yourself,  and  the 
man  who  has  passed  on,  by  trying  to  gain  the  kind  of 
happiness  I  speak  of.  It 's  the  kind  that  makes  you 
one  with  the  sunlight,  a  true  note  in  the  great  music, 
ringing  in  tune  with  the  universe. 

"I  wonder  if  you  happen  to  remember  about  the 
music  which  the  man  in  my  book  (the  man  who  was 
passing)  heard  over  the  battlefield,  the  music  of  life 
for  which  the  music  of  war  and  death  was  only  the 
bass,  the  necessary  undertone?  I  caught  just  a  few 
snatches  of  that  life  music,  but  once  heard  it  goes 
on  echoing  in  the  ears,  teaching  you  the  harmony 
of  all  things,  if  you  listen  deeply  enough.  Those 
young  soldiers  I  tried  to  write  about,  who  had  thrown 


THE  LETTERS  177 

off  their  bodies,  and  even  their  enmities,  with  the 
rags  and  dirt  and  blood  they  left  on  the  battlefield 
— they  were  listening  to  the  great  music,  and  hear- 
ing in  it  the  call  to  some  special  mission  which  only 
they  were  fitted  to  fulfil,  going  to  it  in  the  summer 
of  their  youth,  before  they  had  grown  tired  of  any- 
thing. I  do  believe  that  was  more  than  a  dream  of 
mine;  that  this  torrent  of  splendid  youth,  this  vast 
crowd  of  ardent  souls  suddenly  rushed  from  one 
plane  to  another,  has  some  wonderful  work  to  do, 
which  can  be  done  only  by  souls  who  go  out  with 
the  wine  of  courage  on  their  lips.  But  we  others, 
we  have  our  mission  too.  We  can't  perform  it  if  we 
make  false  notes  in  the  music  for  the  passing  souls  to 
hear.  And  we  shall  make  false  notes  if  we  let  our 
high  vibrations  drop  down  weakly  to  depression's 
minor  tones. 

"Perhaps  you  '11  turn  away  from  this  idea  of 
mine.  But  it 's  one  that  interests  me,  as  you  know, 
because  you  've  honored  my  little  book  by  caring  for 
it.  In  the  dreams  I  had  of  things  on  the  other  side 
of  sight  and  hearing,  I  thought  that  I  saw  the  real 


178       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

meaning  of  the  war — the  hidden  cause  of  this  land- 
slide of  civilization.  I  saw  a  whole  nation  scintil- 
lating with  dull  red  vibrations  of  fear:  fear  of  at- 
tack by  other  nations,  fear  of  letting  neighbors  grow 
stronger  than  they.  Then  I  saw  the  dull  red  glow- 
ing brighter  with  vibrations  of  anger,  a  furious  de- 
sire to  grow  strong  at  the  expense  of  others,  and  to 
kill  and  conquer  at  any  cost.  Beautiful  blue  vibra- 
tions of  intellect,  and  clear  green  vibrations  of  hope 
and  successful  perseverance  were  lost,  swallowed  up 
by  the  all-pervading  blood-red.  I  saw  the  heavy 
crimson  flood  spreading  into  and  lowering  the  golden 
vibrations  of  other  great  peoples,  who  had  not  yet 
fallen;  and  in  the  strange  dream  of  colors  pulsing 
through  the  ether  of  earth  and  heaven,  I  realized  the 
immensity  of  the  fight;  how  it  reached  far  beyond 
the  forces  we  know,  being  in  truth  a  battle  between 
the  light  of  cosmic  day  and  the  darkness  of  cosmic 
night.  I  saw  that  the  danger  was  defeat  of  the  golden 
vibrations  by  the  red  which  would  lower  the  life- 
force  of  the  whole  world;  but  something  told  ,e — 
some  snatch  of  the  great  music  which  interprets 


THE  LETTERS  179 

secrets — that  progress  is  an  integral,  unalterable  part 
of  evolution;  that  evil,  which  is  only  negative  good, 
can  never  conquer ;  and  that  the  gold  vibrations  must 
win  in  the  end.  In  the  dream,  that  knowledge  gave 
me  rest.  It  seemed  a  pronouncement  from  the  tri- 
bunal of  the  Power  which  causes  all  worlds  and  all 
beings  to  take  form  and  exist  by  vibrations. 

"That's  a  long  homily  on  my  dreams  and  the 
theories  I  'm  clumsily  founding  on  them.  But  I  am 
trying  hard  myself  to  vibrate  and  resound  in  tune, 
because  each  vibration  and  each  note  count  quite  as 
much  as  individual  soldiers  count  in  war.  In  this 
time  of  earth  stress,  and  after,  when  civilization  is 
remaking  itself  in  men's  minds,  with  the  loyal  'spirit 
of  the  time'  we  must  all  think  gold  and  blue^  the  gold 
of  the  sun  by  which  our  bodies  live,  blue  of  the  sky 
when  inspirations  come.  You  '11  believe  me  a  'mys- 
tic' (whatever  that  misused  word  may  mean!),  but 
I  'm  only  trying  to  see  the  Reality  behind  the  Thing 
upon  which  I  've  harped  to  you  already.  We  are 
needing  to  know  the  Reality  as  we  never  needed  such 
knowledge  before. 


i8o       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

"Be  happy  then,  in  the  way  that  unites  you  with 
everything  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  all  the  sweet, 
kind  children  of  Nature  close  around  you,  so  that 
you  may  learn  the  different  languages  of  flowers  from 
their  perfumes,  and  what  the  trees  say  in  the  wind. 
You  can't  feel  alone  in  the  world  if  the  trees  talk  to 
you,  and  they  will  if  you  open  your  heart  to  them. 
You  will  get  to  know  the  oak  language,  the  pine,  the 
elm,  the  beech  languages;  and  next  you  will  learn 
how  they  and  the  sea  and  the  rivers  and  brooks,  and 
everything  else  that  makes  up  the  music  of  nature, 
give  out  the  same  message  in  a  thousand  different 
ways:  Be  happy.  To  be  happy  with  your  soul,  no 
matter  what  has  hurt  your  body  and  tried  to  spoil 
your  life,  is  to  be  strong.  Go  into  your  garden,  and 
walk  by  the  lake  you  tell  me  of,  and  don't  be  afraid 
to  call  the  Memory  you  love  to  walk  with  you  there 
or  anywhere.  The  one  you  have  loved  understands 
all,  and  so  there  could  never  be  even  a  question  of 
forgiveness." 

Benin  longed  to  add  to  his  letter  the  request  that 
she  would  write  often ;  but  he  would  not  ask  that  of 


THE  LETTERS  181 

Barbara.  He  must  be  ready  to  give  all  that  she 
wanted,  and  beg  for  nothing  in  return.  Perhaps  if 
she  found  any  small  comfort  in  what  he  had  written 
this  time,  she  would  be  satisfied,  and  feel  that  noth- 
ing more  was  left  to  be  said  on  either  side.  This 
possibility  he  tried  to  keep  before  his  mind,  and  to 
think  of  even  as  a  probability,  in  order  to  soften  the 
blow  of  disappointment  if  he  never  heard  again. 
But  in  his  heart  he  knew  that  she  would  write.  It 
seemed  to  him  when  he  walked  in  the  little  garden 
of  the  Mirador,  or  stretched  his  long  body  on  the 
warm  grass  under  a  big  olive  tree  he  loved,  that  he 
could  hear  her  thoughts  in  the  garden  of  Gorston  Old 
Hall.  With  his  ear  close  to  the  earth  the  message 
Barbara  would  send  by  and  by  seemed  to  come  to 
him  before  it  had  left  her  mind  and  taken  form  on 
paper. 

She  answered  his  cable  without  waiting  for  the 
letter  that  followed. 

"Thank  you  a  thousand  times,"  she  said.  "I 
have  always  something  new  to  thank  you  for.  What 
should  I  have  done  if  your  book  had  n't  come  to  me, 


182       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

and  given  me  you  for  my  friend"?  For  a  little 
while,  I  almost  stopped  believing  in  God,  for  life 
looked  so  cruel,  not  only  to  me  but  to  every  one — 
or  nearly  every  one — I  know,  since  the  war  began. 
Far  and  wide  as  I  looked,  I  could  find  no  mercy,  no 
pity.  How  ungrateful  I  was,  when  all  the  time  God 
was  putting  it  into  your  mind  to  write  that  book, 
and  sending  your  friendship  to  me  when  I  needed  it 
as  one  needs  air  to  breathe ! 

"Do  you  know,  you  are  teaching  me  to  think?  I 
feel  now  as  if  I  had  never  really  thought  before.  I 
just  dreamed,  or  brooded.  If  Tie  had  lived,  I  should 
have  learned  from  him.  That  is,  I  should,  if  our 
souls  had  n't  gone  on  forever  being  shy  of  one  an- 
other. When  I  had  him  with  me,  I  was  too  busy 
loving  him  and  being  afraid  that  he  would  n't  love 
me,  to  think  about  anything  outside,  though  his  mind 
had  given  my  mind  a  great  lift,  even  then.  And  an- 
other thing  I  want  to  tell  you.  Your  way  of  think- 
ing reminds  me  of  him.  I  believe  you  must  be  a 
little  like  him — mentally,  I  mean.  Believing  this 
will  make  me  trust  and  turn  to  you,  as  one  who 


THE  LETTERS  183 

knows  the  things  I  long  to  know.  You  have  his 
name,  too,  'John.'  And  I  am  going  to  sign  my 
name  always  after  this,  not  a  mere  impersonal  initial. 

"I  am  yours,  oh,  so  gratefully,  Barbara  Denin. 

"P.S.  Strange,  I  did  n't  notice  at  first  where  your 
cable  was  dated !  I  suppose,  like  the  help  you  send 
me,  it  seemed  just  to  come  out  of  space !  But  read- 
ing the  message  again,  I  broke  open  the  envelope  I 
had  already  sealed,  to  tell  you  what  a  throb  of  the 
heart  I  had  in  seeing  'Santa  Barbara.'  Can  it  be 
that  you  live  at  Santa  Barbara?  I  was  christened 
after  that  dear  old  place,  because  I  was  born  there, 
or  very  near.  It 's  good — it 's  wonderful  to  have 
your  words  come  to  me  from  home" 

It  was  a  direct  question  which  she  asked.  Did  he 
live  at  Santa  Barbara?  But  Denin  thought  best  not 
to  answer  it.  She  would  forget,  maybe,  or  would 
suppose  that  he  had  been  staying  for  a  short  time  in 
California.  Each  of  his  letters  to  her  before,  though 
posted  not  far  from  the  Mirador  itself,  had  been  en- 
closed in  an  envelope  to  Eversedge  Sibley.  In  all 
but  one  case,  other  letters  to  correspondents  brought 


184       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

the  author  by  his  book  had  been  sent  off  in  the  wrap- 
per with  Barbara's.  Denin  had  taken  pains  to  settle 
the  difficulty  of  writing  to  Gorston  Old  Hall  in  this 
way,  in  order  that  neither  the  name  of  the  woman 
nor  the  name  of  the  place  should  be  remarked  by 
Sibley.  He  kept  this  rule  with  the  letter  which  fol- 
lowed Barbara's  question,  but  her  next  broke  the  plan 
in  pieces.  It  crossed  one  from  him,  and  was  written 
after  receiving  his  letter  about  the  garden. 

"Dear  Friend,"  she  named  him.  "Before  I  say 
anything  else — and  I  feel  that  there  are  a  thousand 
things,  each  pressing  forward  to  be  said  first — I  must 
tell  you  what  I  have  found  out.  I  've  learned  that 
you  are  living  in  the  house  my  father  built  for  me. 
Of  course  that  won't  be  important  to  you.  Why 
should  it  be  so?  I  have  to  remind  myself  over  and 
over  that  I  am  surely  just  one  of  many  women  who 
have  written  to  you  after  reading  your  book;  one  of 
many  women  you  are  kind  to,  out  of  the  goodness  of 
your  heart,  and  the  knowledge  that 's  in  it.  Can 
knowledge  be  in  a  heart?  Yes,  yours  is  there,  I 
think,  even  more  than  in  your  brain.  I  am  nothing  to 


THE  LETTERS  185 

you  except  a  poor  drowning  creature  to  whom  you 
have  held  out  a  firm  hand.  But  the  drowning  creature 
feels  that  your  living  in  a  place  she  knew  and  loved 
gives  her  a  kind  of  personal  right  in  you. 

"I  read  this  very  morning  in  a  London  paper  an 
extract  from  a  New  York  one — an  article  about  John 
Sanbourne.  Perhaps  you  never  even  knew  it  was 
written"?  I  'm  sure  you  gave  no  permission  to  have 
it  done.  I  think  you  would  not  like  the  way  the  man 
wrote  about  you;  but  I  felt,  in  reading,  that  he  tried 
hard  to  bring  his  work  up  to  a  high  level  and  make 
it  worthy  of  the  subject.  If  you  realized  the  good 
it  has  done  me  to  know  that  you  cared  enough  for 
my  dear  little  Mirador  to  want  it  for  your  own,  and 
to  restore  it  from  ruin,  why,  you  could  not  be  so  very 
angry  with  the  newspaper  man ! 

"That  time  in  California,  when  I  was  a  little  girl, 
seemed  a  hundred  years  ago,  or  even  in  another 
state  of  existence,  till  I  read  the  description  of  you 
in  your  garden — once  my  garden.  Then  that  part 
of  my  life  came  back  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  I  can 
see  the  big  olive  tree,  which  had  been  let  grow  as  it 


i86       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

liked,  with  all  sorts  of  flowing,  dancing  gestures  of 
its  branches  and  twisting  of  its  trunk,  the  way  olives 
grow  in  Italy  and  the  south  of  France.  I  used  to 
call  it  my  'silver  fountain.'  And  under  it  there  was 
always  a  look  of  moonlight,  even  in  the  brightest 
noon.  I  do  hope  nothing  has  happened  to  the  tree? 
Say  kind  things  to  the  silver  fountain  from  its  little 
friend  Barbara.  Write  me  about  it,  and  tell  me, 
please,  if  it  means  anything  fairylike  to  you  as  it 
did  to  me.  But  I  know  it  must,  because  of  what 
you  say  about  your  garden.  How  little  I  thought 
when  the  letter  came  four  days  ago,  that  my  long- 
ago  garden  and  your  garden  of  now,  were  one  and 
the  same ! 

"That  letter  was  more  than  a  letter.  It  was  a 
saving  force.  Because  it  was  so  much  to  me,  and  I 
wanted  to  think  it  all  over  and  over,  I  could  n't  have 
dared  to  answer  at  once  in  any  case.  But  it  came 
on  an  anniversary,  August  i8th,  the  day  of  his  pass- 
ing. I  can't  say  or  write  the  word  'death,'  since  I 
have  begun  to  learn  from  you.  It  was  always  a 
dreadful  word,  like  a  bludgeon.  But  now  it 's  im- 


THE  LETTERS  187 

possible.  For  me  it  has  gone  out  of  the  language. 
"As  you  walk  in  your  little  California  garden  of 
the  Mirador,  will  it  please  you  at  all  to  know  that 
you  have  given  me  back  the  joy  of  the  English  gar- 
den, the  beautiful  garden  and  the  lake,  and  the  sweet, 
old,  history-haunted  house  which  he  left  to  be  mine? 
Because  you,  who  know  so  much,  say  that  he  under- 
stands and  does  n't  even  need  to  forgive  me,  I  take 
your  word.  I  am  not  afraid  to  walk  with  his  mem- 
ory now.  I  can  speak  to  it  as  I  should  n't  have  had 
the  courage  to  with  him,  when  he  was  here  in  the 
flesh.  And  because  of  your  letter,  August  i8th  was 
not  a  terrible  day.  It  was  more  like  the  wedding 
day  of  two  spirits  than  the  anniversary  of  a  great 
grief,  and  one  of  the  spirits — mine — just  released 
from  prison.  Not  that  it  can  stay  out  of  prison  for- 
ever. It's  too  weak,  yet,  to  feel  its  freedom  for 
long  at  a  time.  I  've  had  horrible  hours,  ever  since 
that  day.  I  shall  have  tfiem  often,  I  know,  for  the 
thing  I  have  done  has  made  daily  life  a  torture.  But 
at  worst  I  can  steal  away  by  myself  sometimes  to 
read  your  letters  over.  They,  and  my  new  thoughts, 


188       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

will  be  for  me  the  tonic  of  courage;  and  so  I  can 
go  on  from  day  to  day,  not  looking  too  far  ahead, 
into  the  dark. 

"If  I  have  n't  trespassed  upon  your  time  and  im- 
posed upon  your  great  kindness  too  much  already, 
will  you  write  me  little  things  about  the  Mirador 
and  your  life  there1?  Will  you,  if  you  take  photo- 
graphs, send  a  snapshot  of  the  wee  house  as  it  is  now, 
and  perhaps  the  silver  fountain,  to — Your  grateful 
friend,  Barbara  Benin? 

"P.  S.  You  will  think  I  am  very  old-fashioned 
and  early  Victorian  about  my  postscripts,  and  I 
suppose  I  am,  though  I  don't  remember  tacking  many 
onto  other  letters,  only  those  to  you.  This  one  is 
just  a  thought  put  into  my  head  by  some  of  the  last 
things  you  said.  It  is  about  the  war,  and  it  came 
to  me  in  the  garden  on  August  i8th. 

"In  a  world  war  like  this,  with  all  its  anguish,  can 
it  be  meant  for  the  nations,  each  one  that  suffers  and 
strives,  to  develop  by  and  by  a  new  individuality,  a 
great  unselfish,  selfless  Self?  Can  it  be  that  the 
Power  behind  the  worlds  throws  this  one  now  into 


THE  LETTERS  189 

the  furnace  because  development  must  come  for 
progress'  sake*?  When  the  earth  was  first  created, 
every  least  thing  that  lived  fought  for  itself,  and 
there  was  no  holding  together  in  a  large  way,  any- 
where. When  civilizations  came,  they  brought  no 
real  improvement,  for  politics  and  greed  divided  na- 
tions against  themselves  as  well  as  against  each  other. 
Is  the  true  excuse  for  creation  unity,  with  all  the  ex- 
perience of  ages  to  give  it  value*?  If  it  is  so,  and 
if  each  nation  can  attain  to  unity  through  sacrifice 
and  heroism,  won't  the  next  thing  to  follow  be  the 
unity  of  the  whole  world"?  Can  this  be  coming  to 
pass,  slowly  yet  surely,  not  only  with  our  grain  of 
sand,  but  with  all  the  worlds,  while  the  Power  who 
created  watches  through  the  cosmic  days  you  spoke 
of?  It  would  make  one's  own  tears  of  sorrow  seem 
small,  if  one  could  believe  this ;  and  yet  if  we  did  not 
grudge  the  tears,  they  might  count  as  pearls,  poured 
into  a  golden  cup,  to  brim  it  full  of  jewels  worthy  of 
God's  acceptance. 

"Perhaps  this  is  n't  much  of  a  thought.     But  such 
as  it  is,  there  has  been  light  in  it  for  me,  on  dark 


190       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

days.  And  as  I  owe  it  to  you,  I  felt  I  should  like 
to  tell  you  about  it.  It  is  going  to  make  me  realize 
more  than  I  could  before,  the  brotherhood  of  all 
men  in  war  time,  even  the  ones  we  call  the  enemy. 
Why,  I  used  to  be  stupid  and  unseeing  as  a  mole! 
I  hardly  thought  about  common  people,  pasty-faced 
waiters  and  weedy  under-gardeners  and  grocer's  boys, 
as  men  at  all.  Now,  out  of  every  town  and  vil- 
lage they  are  marching  with  their  faces  turned  to  the 
front,  brave  and  smiling.  They  are  as  glorious  sol- 
diers as  any,  and  I  pray  for  them  as  I  would  pray 
for  my  own  brothers.  Is  that  a  step  for  me  towards 
the  great  unity"?  I  wonder — and  hope. 

"You  see,  I  begin  to  warm  myself  at  the  fire  your 
friendship  has  kindled.  Each  letter  you  write  will 
be  a  fresh  log  piled  on  to  feed  the  flame." 


CHAPTER  XII 

WHEN  Denin  wrote  again  he  ventured  to  give 
Barbara  the  name  that  she  had  given  him, 
"Dear  Friend."     And  he  enclosed  photographs  of 
the  Mirador,  with  its  flower-draped  balcony,  and  of 
the  "silver  fountain." 

"What  you  say  about  my  helping  you  is  wonder- 
ful to  hear,  and  makes  me  feel  like  a  comet  stuffed 
with  stars,"  he  wrote.  "It  is  a  great  honor  for  me 
that  you  care  for  my  letters.  It 's  true,  as  you  sur- 
mise, that  others  have  written  and  do  write  to  the 
author  of  The  War  Wedding,'  and  that  is  an  honor 
too,  in  its  way.  But  it 's  an  altogether  different 
way.  I  can't  explain  why.  I  won't  try  to  explain 
why  the  call  you  have  sent  half  across  the  world 
is  different  from  any  other  call.  Yet  I  want  you  to 
believe  that  it  is  so,  that  I  count  it  an  immense  priv- 
ilege to  write  to  you,  and  an  immense  delight  to  get 

191 


192       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

your  answers.  What  you  call  your  'gratitude'  is  the 
highest  compliment  ever  paid  to  me.  In  trying  to 
study  out  your  problems,  I  have  solved  some  of  my 
own.  In  advising  you  to  be  happy,  I  've  found  a 
certain  happiness  for  myself;  so  you  see  that  I  have 
far  more  cause  to  be  grateful  to  you  than  you  could 
possibly  have  to  me. 

"For  one  thing — just  a  small  instance — I  had 
never  taken  a  photograph  in  my  life,  until  you  asked 
me  for  snapshots  of  the  Mirador  garden.  In  order 
to  make  them  for  you  myself,  I  learned  how.  Now 
I  am  deep  in  it.  Do  you  remember  the  little  room 
that  is  half  underground,  yet  not  quite  a  cellar? 
I  've  turned  it  into  a  dark  room  for  developing  my 
negatives.  I  was  up  all  one  night  watching  the 
birth  of  my  first  work.  But  I  don't  tell  you  that  to 
bid  for  thanks.  I  did  it  because  I  was  too  infatuated 
with  the  work  itself  to  think  of  going  to  bed.  These 
things  I  send  are  crude.  I  am  going  to  try  to  be- 
come what  they  call — don't  they? — an  'artist  pho- 
tographer.' When  I  can  give  myself  a  medal  for 
my  achievements,  I  '11  take  some  better  pictures  for 


THE  LETTERS  193 

you,  of  the  house  and  garden,  and  of  the  Mission  and 
other  places  in  the  neighborhood  of  your  old  home 
if  you  would  like  to  have  them.  Of  course  it  in- 
terests me  immensely  to  know  that  you  once  lived 
here." 

The  last  sentence  Benin  added  after  a  long  mo- 
ment of  hesitation.  It  seemed  brutal  not  to  protest 
against  that  humble  supposition  of  Barbara's  that 
her  past  ownership  of  the  Mirador  would  be  unim- 
portant to  him.  But  what  he  burned  to  say  was  so 
much  more,  that  the  few  conventional  words  he 
dared  to  dole  out  looked  churlish  in  black  and  white. 
Still,  he  had  to  let  them  stand. 

After  these  letters,  which  crossed,  the  woman  in 
England  and  the  man  in  California  caught  the  habit 
of  writing  to  one  another  oftener  than  before — and 
differently.  They  did  not  wait  for  something  defi- 
nite to  answer,  for  their  thoughts  so  rushed  to  meet 
each  other  that  it  seemed  as  if  they  knew  by  wire- 
less what  was  best  to  say  each  time.  Often  what 
they  said  might  have  read  commonplacely  to  an  out- 
sider, for  now  they  told  each  other  the  little  things 


194       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

of  every-day  life.  After  her  first  outburst  of  confi- 
dence and  confession,  Barbara  did  not  again  for 
many  weeks  refer  directly  to  Trevor  d'Arcy.  But 
Denin  thought  that  he  understood,  and  felt  his  veins 
fill  full  with  a  sudden  jerk,  as  do  those  of  a  man 
electrocuted,  when  he  read,  "I  am  rather  desperate 
to-day:"  or,  "To  keep  myself  from  going  all  to 
pieces,  just  now,  I  turned  my  thoughts  off  my  own 
life,  as  you  turn  a  tap,  and  sent  them  to  your  garden 
— my  old  garden  of  the  Mirador.  I  strolled  there 
with  you,  and  you  consoled  me.  It  was  evening. 
We  were  in  the  pergola  (Father's  old  head  gardener 
used  to  call  it  the  'paragolla'),  and  I  forgot  the  iron 
grayness  here  that  weighs  down  my  spirit.  Over 
you  and  me,  as  we  talked,  glittered  my  old,  loved 
stars  of  California.  And  the  pergola  with  its  velvet 
drapery  of  leaves  and  flowers,  and  the  three  dark 
cypresses  barring  the  sea  view  at  one  end,  was  like 
a  corridor  hung  with  illuminated  tapestry  'come 
alive.'  You  can't  think  how  real  it  was  for  a  few 
minutes,  walking  there  and  hearing  your  generous 
words  of  comfort,  like  magic  balm  on  a  wound  that 


THE  LETTERS  195 

only  magic  balm  could  heal.  I  've  decided  that 
when  things  are  very  bad  with  me  here,  I  '11  try  that 
way  of  escape  again.  I  will  send  my  thoughts  to 
the  Mirador  garden,  and  the  comfort  that  nobody 
but  you — who  understand  so  marvelously — can  even 
be  asked  to  give.  Do  you  mind  my  flying  to  you? 
Will  you  'pretend'  too,  sometimes  in  those  starlit 
nights,  that  I  have  come  to  ask  your  advice  and 
help*?  Will  you  feel  as  if  I  were  actually  there, 
and  will  you  put  the  advice  into  words?  Maybe 
they  '11  reach  me  so.  I  do  believe  they  will.  And 
I  am  needing  such  words  more  than  ever  lately.  I 
can  hardly  wait  for  them  to  come  in  letters.  Though 
I  have  the  'invisible  wall  of  love'  to  lean  against, 
that  you  told  me  of  (and  I  do  lean  hard!),  there 
is  an  influence  which  tries  always  to  drag  me  away 
from  that  dear  support,  making  it  seem  not  to  be- 
long to  me  after  all.  There  's  a  voice  which  tells 
me  I  was  never  really  loved  by  the  one  whose  mem- 
ory I  worship ;  that  he  asked  me  to  marry  him  only 
because  mother  practically  forced  him  to  do  so.  This 
is  n't  an  inner  voice.  It 's  the  voice  of  a  person 


196       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

whose  jealousy  and  cruelty  I  must  forgive,  or  be  as 
cruel  myself.  The  voice  says  it  has  reason  to  be  sure 
that  all  it  tells  me  is  true ;  that  it 's  useless  for  me 
to  ask  mother,  because  she  would  deny  it;  besides, 
she  is  too  ill  to  be  troubled  or  reproached  about 
anything.  You  know,  I  have  two  invalids  now, 
so  I  can't  do  much  for  any  one  outside,  except 
send  money — his  money,  to  the  poor  and  the 
wounded. 

"The  terrible  voice  hammers  constantly  on  my 
heart,  and  is  breaking  it  to  pieces,  in  spite  of  your 
help.  For  even  you  can't  help  me  there.  How 
could  you,  when  about  that  one  thing — that  princi- 
pal thing  of  all,  it  seems  now — you  have  no  knowl- 
edge? You  can't  know  whether  he  ever  loved  me 
as  a  man  loves  one  woman,  or  whether  he  was  simply 
willing  to  spread  his  generous  protection  round  me 
for  the  future,  when  he  was  going  away  to  risk  his 
life.  It  would  have  been  like  him  to  do  that,  I  have 
to  admit  in  some  moods.  And  I  hate  the  moods, 
and  hate  the  voice  for  putting  the  idea — which 
mercifully  had  n't  struck  me  before — into  my  head. 


THE  LETTERS  197 

I  ought  n't  to  hate  the  voice,  because  it  may  be  that 
its  wickedness — almost  fiendish  at  times — is  caused 
only  by  hopeless  suffering.  I  strive  to  say  to  my- 
self, as  I  think  you  would  wish  me  to  say,  'Could  a 
bird  who  had  been  blinded  and  thrown  into  a  cage 
where  it  never  saw  sunshine,  do  better  than  croak, 
or  peck  the  hand  that  tried  to  feed  it?' 

"I  need  to  walk  with  you  in  your  garden,  you  see ! 
Send  me  kind  thoughts  from  there,  without  waiting 
to  write.  Then,  if  I  send  you  questions  in  the  same 
way,  I  shall  feel  that  you  hear  and  answer.  I  shall 
listen  for  the  answers.  Tell  me,  first  of  all,  do  you, 
as  a  man,  think  another  man  would  ask  a  girl  to 
marry  him  just  because  she  was  poor  and  without 
prospects,  and  he  was  going  away  to  face  death*? 
Of  course  it 's  true  that  you  can't  know,  but  what 
do  you  think?  Remember,  I'm  not  speaking  of 
an  ordinary  man,  but  one  almost  too  generous  and 
chivalrous  for  these  days.  Do  you  think  such  an 
one  might  have  done  that?" 

Benin  wrote  back,  "I  think  no  man  would  have 
done  that.  You  need  have  no  fear  that  you  were 


198       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

married  for  any  motive  but  love.  A  man — even 
such  a  man  as  you  describe — must  have  argued  that 
a  young,  attractive  girl  would  have  plenty  of  chances 
in  life,  at  least  as  good  as  that  which  he  could  offer. 
She  would  have  no  need  of  his  protection,  and  he 
would  have  no  right  to  press  it  upon  her,  unless  he 
gave  all  his  love  as  well." 

This  assurance  Denin  tried  to  send  Barbara  in  the 
way  she  asked,  as  well  as  by  the  letter  which  would 
take  weeks  to  reach  its  destination.  He  made  of  his 
ardent  thought  for  her  a  carrier  pigeon  with  golden 
wings,  which  could  travel  swiftly  as  the  light. 
Thus  he  rushed  to  her  the  answers  to  many  questions, 
— questions  which  seemed  to  come  to  him  from  far 
off,  as  he  walked  in  the  garden.  He  could  hear  her 
voice  calling,  when  the  wind  came  over  the  sea,  from 
the  east  where  England  lay. 

Denin  had  bought  the  Mirador  and  begun  his  life 
there,  with  some  echo  of  Ernest  Dowson's  words  in 
his  mind: 

Now  will  I  take  me  to  a  place  of  peace : 

Forget  my  heart's  desire, 

In  solitude  and  prayer  work  out  my  soul's  release. 


THE  LETTERS  199 

But  his  heart's  desire  was  with  him,  as  it  could 
have  been  nowhere  else,  so  vividly,  flamingly  with 
him,  that  there  could  be  no  thought  of  finding  peace. 
He  no  longer  even  wished  for  peace.  He  would  not 
have  exchanged  a  peace  pure  as  the  crystal  stillness 
of  a  mountain  lake,  for  the  dear  torture  of  seeing 
Barbara's  soul  laid  bare.  He  was  never  in  a  state 
calm  enough  to  analyze  his  feelings.  He  could  only 
feel.  Yet  the  strangeness  of  his  position  and  hers 
swept  over  him  sometimes,  as  with  a  hot  gust  from 
the  tropics.  John  Denin  had  had  to  die,  in  order 
to  learn  that  his  wife  adored  him.  The  price  would 
not  have  been  too  big,  if  he  alone  had  to  pay,  but 
she  was  paying  too.  He  could  not  take  the  pay- 
ment all  upon  himself;  yet  he  could  help  to  make  it 
less  of  a  strain  for  her,  and  all  his  life  was  poured 
into  the  giving  of  this  help.  Every  thought,  every 
heart-beat  was  for  Barbara.  He  lived  to  give  him- 
self to  her,  and  to  take  what  she  had  for  him  in  re- 
turn. With  each  day  that  passed  he  realized  how 
much  more  they  were  to  each  other  at  this  vast  dis- 
tance— these  two,  parted  forever — than  most  men 


200       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

and  women  living  side  by  side  in  legal  union.  He 
knew  that  John  Sanbourne  was  absolutely  necessary 
to  Barbara  Benin,  as  she  was  to  him;  and  all  the 
incidents  of  their  daily  lives,  big  and  small,  though 
lived  separately,  drew  them  together  when  re- 
counted, as  pearls  are  drawn  together  on  a  lengthen- 
ing string. 

Now  that  the  secret  was  out,  and  Lady  Benin 
knew  where  John  Sanbourne  had  made  his  home, 
without  suspecting  any  hidden  mystery  in  the  coin- 
cidence, he  was  thankful  that  she  had  learned  the 
truth.  A  barrier  was  down,  and  they  seemed  to  gaze 
straight  into  each  other's  eyes,  across  the  space  where 
it  had  been.  In  return  for  his  snapshots  of  the 
Mirador  and  its  garden,  Barbara  sent  photographs 
taken  by  herself  of  Gorston  Old  Hall.  One  of 
these  showed  the  lake,  with  a  bow- windowed  corner 
of  the  black  and  white  house  mirrored  in  it — the 
very  spot  where  Sir  John  Benin  had  asked  Barbara 
Fay  to  be  his  wife.  "The  place  I  love  best,"  she 
said.  Though  she  did  not  say  why,  it  thrilled  him 
to  guess.  And  in  the  same  letter  she  sent  faintly 


THE  LETTERS  201 

fragrant  specimens  from  the  "Shakespeare  border." 
How  the  sweetness  of  the  dear  old-fashioned 
things,  whose  very  names  distilled  a  perfume,  floated 
back  to  Benin  from  the  garden  he  had  given  to  his 
love! 

"My  husband  had  the  border  planted,"  Barbara 
explained.  "Don't  you  think  it  a  delicious  idea? 
Not  a  single  flower  or  herb  mentioned  by  Shakes- 
peare has  been  forgotten,  and  you  can  hardly  im- 
agine what  a  noble  company  has  been  brought  to- 
gether. Once  we  walked  in  the  garden,  he  and  I, 
on  a  moonlight  night,  when  a  breeze  came  up  and 
drove  the  evening  mists  slowly,  slowly  along  the 
paths  and  borders  like  a  procession  of  spirits  in  silver 
cloaks.  We  played  that  it  had  driven  away  the 
ghosts  of  Shakespeare's  people,  kings  and  queens 
and  knights  and  ladies  called  back  to  earth  by  the 
perfume — which,  you  say,  is  the  voice — of  those 
well-remembered  flowers.  That 's  one  of  the  mem- 
ories I  cherish  now,  when  I  walk  past  the  Shakes- 
peare borders  in  the  moony  dusk.  And  thanks  to 
you — who  have  helped  me  literally  to  move  into  my 


202       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

dreams  and  live  there — I  don't  seem  to  walk  alone. 
For  a  few  moments  then,  I  am  neither  lonely  nor 
sad.  The  moonlight  still  drips  into  my  heart,  like 
water  into  a  fountain,  as  it  dripped  on  that  night  I 
remember:  and  my  thoughts  lead  me  along  a  beau- 
tiful, mysterious  road  that  nobody  else  can  see — a 
road  to  wonderful  things  I  've  never  known,  but 
have  always  longed  for,  such  a  road  as  certain  music 
seems  to  open  out  before  you." 

The  pressed  leaves  and  petals  in  Barbara's  let- 
ter were  those  of  pansies,  rosemary,  and  rue:  the 
dark  blue  pansies  he  had  once  thought  like  her  eyes 
at  night;  rosemary  for  the  never-absent  remembrance 
of  them;  rue  for  an  ever  aching  regret,  because  of 
what  might  have  been  and  could  not  be. 

She  asked  him  to  tell  her  what  he  had  done  inside 
as  well  as  outside  of  the  Mirador  since  he  had  taken 
it,  and  how  he  had  furnished  the  rooms.  This  was 
a  difficult  question  to  answer,  because  Denin  had  sur- 
rounded himself  with  everything  she  had  described 
in  her  old  environment:  white  dimity  curtains,  rag- 
woven  rugs  of  pale,  intermingled  tints,  the  "Mission" 


THE  LETTERS  203 

made  chairs  and  tables,  and  copies  of  her  old  pic- 
tures on  the  walls.  If  he  detailed  his  chosen  sur- 
roundings, would  not  the  added  coincidence  strike 
her  as  almost  incredibly  strange? 

Denin  ignored  the  request  in  his  following  letter, 
but  Barbara  repeated  it  in  her  next.  "After  all,  it 
is  n't  possible  that  she  should  suspect  the  truth,"  he 
argued,  and  at  last  took  what  risk  there  was,  rather 
than  appear  secretive.  Not  that  there  was  a  risk, 
he  assured  himself  over  and  over  again;  yet  when 
a  letter  came  which  must  be  a  reply  to  his,  the  man's 
fingers  trembled  on  the  envelope.  In  a  revealing 
flash  like  lightning  which  shows  a  chasm  to  a  traveler 
by  night,  he  glimpsed  a  hidden  side  of  his  own 
nature.  He  saw  that  it  would  be  a  disappointment, 
not  a  relief  to  him,  if  Barbara  passed  over  his  de- 
scription of  the  new-born  Mirador  without  stum- 
bling on  any  vague  suspicion.  He  realized  that  he 
must  have  been  hoping  for  her  to  guess  at  the  truth, 
and  so  break  the  thin  crust  of  lava  on  that  crater's 
brink  where  they  both  stood,  gathering  flowers. 

"Good   God,   I   thought   I   had  gained   a  little 


204       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

strength!"  he  said,  and  opened  the  letter  quickly, 
though  with  all  accustomed  tenderness  of  touch. 
Then  he  tried  to  be  glad,  and  remind  himself  that  he 
had  known  it  would  be  so,  when  he  read  that  she 
wondered  only,  without  suspecting. 

"If  I  had  n't  been  certain  of  it  before,"  she  wrote, 
"I  should  believe  now  that  there  are  more  things 
in  heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamt  of  in  our  phi- 
losophy. It  must  indeed  be  that  our  thoughts  do 
travel  far,  and  impress  themselves  upon  the  thoughts 
of  others,  for  it  can't  be  a  mere  coincidence — as  your 
taking  the  Mirador  was — that  you  have  made  the 
place  over  again  just  as  I  had  it.  I  must  have  gone 
there  in  a  dream,  and  told  you  things  in  your  sleep. 
Then  you  waked  up,  and  supposed  that  the  ideas 
were  all  your  own  original  fancies.  The  strangest 
part  is  about  the  pictures.  I  had  Rossetti's  'An- 
nunciation' in  my  bedroom.  I  chose  it  myself,  be- 
cause of  the  lilies,  and  the  little  flames  on  the  angel's 
feet.  I  chose  'La  Gioconda'  too,  because  it  seemed 
to  me  that  I  should  some  day  discover  what  made 
her  smile  so  secret,  yet  so  enchanting,  just  as  if,  could 


THE  LETTERS  205 

one  listen  long  enough,  one  might  catch  the  tune  in 
the  music  of  a  brook  or  river.  I  used  to  stand  be- 
fore the  mirror  of  my  dressing-table  at  the  right 
of  the  big  window,  and  practise  smiling  like  her,  but 
I  could  never  manage  it.  I  thought,  if  I  could, 
when  I  grew  up  I  should  be  able  to  make  a  man  I 
loved  fall  in  love  with  me,  even  if  he  did  n't  care  at 
first.  Poor  child  Me!  I  remembered  that  wish, 
when  I  wanted  the  One  Man  to  love  me,  and  yet 
was  too  proud  and  ashamed  to  try  and  make  him  do 
it. 

"Downstairs  I  had  Carpaccio's  dreaming  St.  Ur- 
sula, with  the  tiny  dog  asleep,  and  the  little  slippers 
by  the  bedside.  And  you  have  that  picture  hanging 
almost  in  the  same  place!  Yes,  I  must  unknow- 
ingly have  cast  some  influence  upon  you.  That 
seems  exquisite  to  me.  I  hope  you  do  not  mind? 
If  you  don't,  I  shall  try  again  in  other  ways.  In- 
deed, I  shall  begin  at  once  by  influencing  you  to  do 
me  a  favor,  I  've  been  waiting  a  long  time  to  ask, 
and  never  quite  found  the  courage  to  put  into  words. 
Send  me  a  photograph  of  yourself.  I  want  it  very 


2o6       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

much,  to  make  sure  that  my  mental  picture  of  you 
is  right." 

It  was  hard  to  refuse  the  first  request  she  had  ever 
spoken  of  as  a  "favor."  Denin  was  half  tempted 
to  buy  the  portrait  of  some  decent-looking  fellow 
and  label  it  "John  Sanbourne";  but  only  half 
tempted.  He  could  not  lie  to  Barbara,  and  was  re- 
duced to  the  excuse  that  he  "took  a  bad  photograph." 
It  would  be  better  for  her  to  keep  the  friendly  men- 
tal picture  she  had  painted,  rather  than  be  disillu- 
sioned. "This  sounds  as  if  I  were  vain,"  he  added, 
"but  unfortunately  I  have  every  reason  not  to  be." 

"Either  she  won't  care  at  all  about  not  getting  the 
photograph,  or  else  she  '11  be  offended,"  Denin 
prophesied  gloomily.  "Time  will  show."  And 
when  the  day  to  which  he  had  looked  forward  for 
an  answer  burst  upon  him  like  a  thunderclap,  bring- 
ing no  letter,  he  thought  that  time  had  shown.  She 
was  angry,  or  worse  still,  hurt,  feeling  that  like 
Psyche  with  the  oil-dropping  lantern,  she  had  been 
rebuked  for  curiosity.  He  saw  himself  losing  her 
again,  through  this  small  and  miserable  misunder- 


THE  LETTERS  207 

standing  which  he  could  not,  must  not,  set  right. 
A  second  loss  would  be  a  thousand  times  worse  than 
the  first,  because  this  time  her  soul  had  belonged 
to  his  soul.  Their  letters,  their  need  of  each  other, 
had  circled  them  as  if  in  a  magic  ring,  or  under  a 
glass  case  which,  transparent  to  invisibility,  had 
housed  them  warmly  together.  A  spiritual  nausea 
of  fear,  fear  of  loss,  turned  his  heart  to  water,  so 
that  over  and  over  again  he  asked  himself  what  to 
do,  without  having  power  to  answer. 

He  remembered  the  old  fairy  tale  of  Beauty  and 
the  Beast,  and  how  the  Beast  lay  down  despairingly, 
to  die  in  his  garden,  because  Beauty,  who  had  made 
his  life  bearable,  even  happy,  went  away  volun- 
tarily and  for  a  long  time  forgot  her  promise  to  come 
back. 

The  Mirador  garden  lost  something  of  its  old 
spell  for  Denin.  A  glowworm  which  had  come  to 
live  at  the  end  of  the  pergola,  and  evidently  believed 
in  itself  as  a  permanent  family  pet,  was  no  longer 
an  intelligent  and  charming  companion.  He  had 
valued  it  only,  he  saw  now,  because  he  had  meant 


208       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

to  amuse  Barbara  by  describing  it  to  her,  as  his  new- 
est friend.  On  nights  when  letters  from  her  had 
come,  all  the  passion  and  romance  of  the  world  since 
its  beginning  had  streamed  along  the  sea  to  his  eyes, 
by  the  path  of  the  moon.  But  now  the  white  light 
had  a  hard,  steely  radiance  that  dazzled  his  eyes. 

While  the  link  held  between  him  and  Barbara, 
it  had  been  easy  for  Benin  to  feel  kinship  with 
nature,  with  the  world  and  worlds  beyond.  His 
mind  had  traveled  hand  in  hand  with  hers  over  the 
whole  earth  and  on,  on  to  unknown  immensities,  as 
rings  from  a  dropped  stone  spread  endlessly  on  the 
surface  of  water. 

Expecting  answers  from  Barbara,  he  had  had  an 
incentive  to  live,  and  had  looked  eagerly  forward 
to  each  new  day,  as  to  opening  the  door  of  a  room 
he  had  never  seen  before,  a  room  full  of  beautiful 
things,  made  ready  for  him  alone.  Now,  when  day 
after  day  passed,  bringing  no  word  from  her,  the 
rooms  of  the  House  of  the  Future  were  empty. 

He  had  advised  her,  when  she  needed  counsel, 
to  look  and  listen  inside  herself,  for  a  voice.  But 


THE  LETTERS  209 

now,  no  such  voice  spoke  to  him,  except  to  say, 
"You  have  been  a  fool.  You  must  unconsciously 
have  expressed  yourself  in  some  blundering  way  that 
disgusted  her,  broke  the  statue  she  'd  set  up  on  a 
pedestal.  She  is  'disillusioned'  indeed !" 

A  week  dragged  itself  on  into  a  fortnight  after  the 
day  when  Barbara's  answer  ought  to  have  come. 
Still  Benin  had  done  nothing  but  wait,  because  it 
appeared  to  him  that  no  explanation  of  his  seeming 
ungraciousness  was  possible.  If  Barbara  did  not 
want  him  any  more,  he  could  not  make  her  want 
him. 

Had  he  not  loved  her  so  much,  he  might  have 
thought  her  silence  due  to  illness;  but  he  was  sure 
that  he  should  know  if  she  were  ill.  She  had  let 
him  walk  into  the  home  of  her  soul  and  its  secret 
garden  of  thought;  she  had  offered  him  the  flowers 
of  her  childhood  and  girlhood  which  no  one  else  had 
ever  seen;  and  if  a  blight  had  fallen  upon  her  body, 
he  was  so  near  that  he  would  feel  the  chill  of  it  in 
his  own  blood.  No,  he  told  himself,  Barbara  was 
not  ill.  She  had  shut  herself  away  from  him,  that 


210       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

was  all ;  and  the  very  nature  of  his  relationship  with 
her  forbade  his  claiming  anything  which  she  did  not 
wish  to  give. 

He  lost  all  hope  of  hearing  again,  at  the  end  of  a 
month,  yet  would  not  let  himself  accuse  her  of  in- 
justice. Had  she  not  a  right  to  drop  him  if  she 
chose?  He  had  no  cause  for  complaining.  He  had 
received  from  the  "tankard  of  love"  those  two  drafts 
which  are  said  to  recompense  a  man  for  the  pains  of 
a  lifetime,  and  he  could  expect  no  more.  Yet  he 
seemed  always  to  be  listening,  as  if  for  some  sound 
to  come  to  him  through  space,  or  even  the  faint  echo 
of  a  sound,  like  the  murmur  in  a  bell  after  it  has 
ceased  to  chime. 

One  day,  when  five  weeks  lay  between  him  and 
hope,  a  telegram  was  brought  to  the  Mirador. 
Denin  opened  it  indifferently,  for  his  publisher  often 
wired  to  him  when  a  new  edition  of  "The  War 
Wedding"  came  out,  or  if  anything  of  special  inter- 
est happened  in  connection  with  the  book.  But 
this  time  the  message  was  from  England.  It  was 
unsigned,  yet  he  knew  that  it  was  from  Barbara. 


THE  LETTERS  211 

She  said,  "My  mother  has  been  at  death's  door  for 
many  weeks.  Now  she  is  gone.  I  am  writing." 

"Thank  God!"  Denin  heard  himself  gasp,  and 
then  was  struck  with  remorse  for  his  hard-hearted- 
ness.  He  had  thanked  God  because  Barbara  had 
not  taken  herself  away  from  him,  and  in  the  rush 
of  joy  had  forgotten  what  it  would  mean  for  her 
to  be  without  her  mother. 

She  was  alone  now  with  Trevor  d'Arcy,  at  Gor- 
ston  Old  Hall. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

DENIN  cabled  an  answer  to  Barbara,  and  then 
began  a  letter  to  her.  He  was  in  the  midst 
of  it,  when  he  was  disturbed  by  a  caller,  a  man  he 
had  never  seen  before.  Expecting  no  one,  the  her- 
mit of  the  Mirador  had  been  writing  out  of  doors, 
in  the  pergola,  and  so  was  caught  without  a  chance 
of  escape.  He  sprang  up  and  stood  in  front  of  the 
little  table  on  which  were  his  paper  and  ink,  as  if  to 
protect  the  letter  from  the  touch  of  a  stranger's  eyes. 
But  the  visitor,  who  had  caught  sight  of  John  San- 
bourne  through  the  network  of  leaves  and  flowers, 
appeared  blissfully  ignorant  that  he  was  unwelcome. 
He  was  tall,  almost  as  tall  as  Denin  himself, 
though  he  looked  less  than  his  height,  because  of  a 
loose  stoutness  which  hung  upon  him  as  if  his  clothes 
were  untidily  padded.  His  large  face,  and  the 
whites  of  his  eyes,  and  his  big  teeth,  were  all  of 

212 


THE  LETTERS  213 

much  the  same  shade  of  yellow;  and  his  hair,  turn- 
ing gray,  had  streaks  of  that  color  under  the  Panama 
hat  which  he  did  not  remove. 

"Good  afternoon.  I  suppose  you  are  Mr.  San- 
bourne1?"  he  remarked,  in  a  throaty  voice,  with  a 
certain  air  of  condescension  which  told  that  here 
was  no  author-worshiping  pilgrim.  "My  name  is 
Carl  Pohlson  Bradley." 

"Ah!  How  do  you  do?"  replied  Benin  aloofly. 
He  wanted  to  go  on  with  his  letter. 

"I  'm  pretty  well,  thank  you,"  responded  the 
other,  accepting  the  suggested  solicitude  for  his 
health  as  fact,  not  a  fiction  of  politeness.  "I  got 
here  this  morning.  Staying  at  the  Potter,  of  course. 
I  been  taking  a  look  round  the  place." 

"Ah!"  said  Benin  again.  He  could  not  think — 
and  did  not  much  care  to  think — of  anything  else 
to  say.  But  the  large  yellow  face  changed  slightly, 
in  surprise.  "I  expect  you  heard  I  was  likely  to 
come,  didn't  you?" 

"No,"  said  Benin.  "Not  to  my  recollection." 
Then  more  kindly,  "I  'm  rather  a  hermit.  I  go  out 


214       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

very  little,  and  have  only  a  few  callers.  I  don't  get 
much  news,  except  what  I  see  in  the  papers." 

"It  was  in  the  papers."  The  tone  in  which  Mr. 
Carl  Pohlson  Bradley  gave  this  piece  of  information 
suggested  that  his  prominence  was  international  as 
well  as  physical. 

"Can  he  be  a  New  York  reporter?"  thought 
Denin,  his  heart  sinking. 

But  the  caller  had  pulled  from  a  pocket  of  his 
brown  tweed  coat  a  newspaper,  folded  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  conspicuous  a  marked  paragraph  in 
the  middle  column.  This  he  handed  to  Denin  as  if 
it  had  been  a  visiting  card. 

The  paper  was  a  local  one,  and  the  very  first  line 
of  the  paragraph  mentioned  Mr.  Carl  Pohlson  Brad- 
ley as  a  St.  Louis  millionaire.  It  went  on  to  state 
that,  having  retired  from  business  with  a  great  for- 
tune at  the  early  age  of  fifty-nine,  Mr.  Bradley  in- 
tended to  buy  an  estate  in  California,  as  a  winter 
residence  for  his  family.  Having  read  so  far, 
Denin  supposed  that  he  had  sufficiently  informed 
himself,  and  offered  to  give  the  paper  back. 


THE  LETTERS  215 

Bradley,  however,  waved  it  away.  "Read  the 
rest,"  he  advised. 

Benin  did  so,  and  with  a  shock  learned  that  his 
tall  yellow  visitor  had  become  the  owner  of  what 
was  still  known  as  "the  old  Fay  place." 

"This  is  a  surprise,"  he  said,  not  making  any  at- 
tempt to  look  pleased.  "I  didn't  even  know  the 
place  was  for  sale." 

"Most  places  are,  if  the  price  is  big  enough  to  be 
tempting.  When  I  want  a  thing  I  'm  willing  to  pay 
for  it.  And  that  brings  us  to  my  call  on  you,  sir.  I 
hear  you  're  an  author,  and  have  written  a  story 
that 's  sold  about  a  million  copies  or  some  other  big 
figure  which  makes  a  lot  of  folks  want  to  come  here 
and  see  what  you  're  like.  But  that  is  n't  what  I  'm 
here  for.  I  don't  read  stories.  I  've  called  on  busi- 
ness. I  want  to  know  how  much  you  '11  take  to  sell 
me  this  bit  of  land  you  've  bought  on  my  place?" 

Benin's  nerves  had  been  on  edge  for  the  last  few 
weeks,  and  he  felt  an  unreasonable  impulse  of  anger 
against  the  fat,  self-complacent  man.  "I  won't 
sell,"  he  said.  "I  'm  sorry  if  you  don't  like  having 


216       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

so  near  a  neighbor,  but  I  was  on  the  spot  first." 
"I  don't  see  what  that 's  got  to  do  with  it,"  said 
Bradley.  "To  my  notion,  this  bit  walled  off  from 
my  place  is  a  regular  eyesore.  The  Mirador,  or 
whatever  they  call  it,  is  a  rotten  little  den  anyhow, 
if  you  '11  excuse  my  saying  so,  more  fit  for  a  child's 
playhouse  than  a  gentleman." 

"I  believe  it  was  built  for  a  child's  playhouse," 
said  Denin.  "But  it  happens  to  suit  me,  though 
I've  never  thought  of  dignifying  it  by  the  name 
of  'residence.' ' 

"Well,  anyhow,  if  you  like  a  little  bungalow,  you 
can  buy  a  better  one  than  this  with  more  ground 
around  it,  without  troubling  yourself  to  move  a 
mile,"  Bradley  persisted.  "I  'm  no  bargainer.  As 
I  said  just  now,  when  I  want  a  thing  I  'm  willing 
to  pay  for  it.  I  '11  tell  you  what  I  '11  do,  Mr.  San- 
bourne.  I  '11  give  you,  for  this  little  corner  lot,  as 
you  might  call  it,  not  only  twice  what  it's  worth, 
but  the  price  of  any  other  bungalow  within  reason 
you  choose  to  select.  And  I  '11  pay  your  moving  ex- 
penses, too.  Now,  what  do  you  say  to  that*?" 


THE  LETTERS  217 

"Just  what  I  said  before.     I  don't  wish  to  sell." 

"  Say,  this  is  a  holdup !"  blustered  the  St.  Louis 
millionaire. 

Suddenly  Benin's  good  temper  came  back,  with  a 
laugh. 

"So  you  think  I  'm  trying  to  'hold  you  up'  for  a 
higher  price !"  he  exclaimed.  "I  assure  you  I  'm 
not.  If  you  offered  me  twenty  thousand  dollars  I 
would  n't  accept." 

"What!"  gasped  Mr.  Bradley.  "Twenty  thou- 
sand dollars  for  this  little  rabbit  hutch  in  a  back 
yard?  Good  Lord,  it  ain't  worth  a  thousand,  at  top 
price." 

"Not  to  you,  but  it  is  to  me.  So,  don't  you  see, 
it 's  useless  to  argue  further1?"  asked  Benin,  his  eyes 
still  laughing  at  the  big  man's  ruffled  discomfiture 
and  surprise  that  such  things  could  happen  between 
a  poor  author  and  a  millionaire. 

"Argue!  I  didn't  come  here  expecting  to  ar- 
gue !"  spluttered  Bradley,  looking  like  a  bull  stopped 
at  full  gallop  by  a  spider  web.  "I  came  here  to — 
to—" 


218       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

"I  quite  understand,  and  I  'm  sorry  to  be  disoblig- 
ing, but  I  'm  afraid  I  must,"  Denin  cut  in.  "Any- 
how, I  need  n't  be  inhospitable  too.  Will  you 
lunch  with  me,  Mr.  Bradley*?  I  can't  offer  you 
much,  but  if  we  're  to  be  neighbors — " 

"Great  Scott,  man,  I  'm  staying  at  the  POT- 
TER!" exploded  Bradley,  with  a  glance  almost  of 
horror  at  the  little  table  in  the  pergola  where  writ- 
ing materials  had  pushed  aside  dishes  on  a  white 
cloth  already  laid.  The  look  contrasted  John  San- 
bourne's  hospitality  so  frankly  with  the  fare  await- 
ing him  at  Santa  Barbara's  biggest  hotel,  that 
Denin  laughed  again. 

"Well,  then,"  he  said,  "if  ever  I  change  my  mind 
I  '11  send  you  word.  We  '11  let  it  stand  at  that." 

With  a  reluctance  pathetic  in  a  man  so  large  and 
yellow,  Bradley  saw  himself  forced  for  the  present 
to  swallow  the  humble  author's  dictum.  His  jaun- 
diced eyes  traveled  over  the  little  pink  house,  with 
its  balcony  shaded  by  pepper  trees,  over  the  garden 
which  he  had  called  a  "corner  lot,"  and  over  the 
simple  pergola  which  for  its  owner  was  a  "corridor 


THE  LETTERS  219 

of  illuminated  tapestry."  It  seemed  to  Benin  that 
the  man  could  have  burst  out  crying,  like  a  spoiled 
child  suddenly  thwarted. 

"I  think  you  're  da —  mighty  foolish !"  Bradley 
amended,  remembering  the  need  to  be  conciliatory. 
"But  I  'm  sure  you  '11  think  better  of  it.  I  'm  sure 
you  will  change  your  mind.  I  only  hope  for  your 
sake  I  won't  have  changed  MINE  when  that  time 
comes !" 

On  that  he  made  a  dramatic  exit,  with  a  mixture 
of  stride  and  waddle  suited  to  one  who  felt  that  he 
had  had  the  last  word. 

When  he  had  gone,  Denin  finished  his  letter  and 
forgot  all  about  Mr.  Carl  Pohlson  Bradley.  Also 
he  forgot  about  luncheon.  But  that  did  not  matter, 
for  his  meals  were  movable  feasts.  He  had  them, 
or  did  not  have  them,  according  to  his  mood,  like 
the  hermit  he  was  becoming.  Mr.  Bradley,  how- 
ever, he  was  forced  to  remember  at  short  intervals, 
nearly  every  day,  while  he  lived  through  the  time 
of  waiting  for  the  letter  promised  in  Barbara's  cable. 
"Changed  your  mind  yet*?"  the  new  owner  of  the 


220       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

"Fay  place"  would  yell  from  his  huge  automobile, 
spraying  dust  over  John  Sanbourne  on  the  white 
road  to  Santa  Barbara.  Or  he  would  prowl,  grum- 
bling, on  the  other  side  of  the  flower-draped  bar- 
rier which  separated  the  Mirador  garden  from  his 
newly  acquired  property.  At  last  he  sent  a  lawyer 
to  his  irritating  neighbor  with  a  definite  offer  of 
twenty  thousand,  five  hundred  dollars — just  tempt- 
ingly over  the  price  Sanbourne  had  said  that  he 
would  not  take.  But  Benin  answered,  "The 
Mirador  is  my  ewe  lamb." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

""¥  T  THEN  my  mother  was  taken  so  desperately 
\  \  ill,"  Barbara  wrote,  "every  moment  had 
to  be  for  her,  except  those  I  could  spare  now  and 
then  for  the  other  invalid.  I  wanted  to  wire  you; 
but  to  do  that  seemed  to  be  conceited,  as  if  I  took 
your  personal  interest  in  me  very  much  for  granted. 
I  knew  you  would  be  too  kind  to  laugh  at  anything 
I  did;  but  perhaps,  in  spite  of  yourself,  the  idea 
might  flash  through  your  mind,  'Poor  thing,  she  tele- 
graphs because  she  has  no  time  to  write.  She  must 
think  I  value  her  letters  a  lot."  This  was  just  after 
you  had  said  that  you  would  n't  send  me  your  pho- 
tograph, you  may  remember.  But  no,  why  should 
you  remember*?  You  will  recall  it  now,  though, 
when  I  bring  it  up  to  you  again.  And  if  you  do, 
please  don't  think  I  was  foolish  and  small  enough 
to  be  offended  or  piqued.  I  was  n't — oh,  not  for  a 
moment.  I  was  only  disappointed  and  a  little — 


221 


222       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

let  down,  if  you  know  what  I  mean.  I  felt  as  if  I 
had  been  taking  a  liberty  with  the  best  and  kindest 
friend  a  girl  or  woman  ever  had,  and  laying  myself 
open  to  be  misunderstood.  I  felt,  if  I  followed  up 
that  request  by  cabling  to  you  that  you  must  n't  ex- 
pect letters  for  some  time,  it  would  be  another  blun- 
der. But  oh,  how  I  missed  my  friend ! 

"Two  letters  from  you  came  to  me,  after  I  had 
been  obliged  to  stop  writing,  but  because  I  'd  been 
able  to  send  none,  nothing  seemed  right.  I  felt  as 
if  I  had  lost  hold  upon  you.  I  groped  for  you  in 
the  darkness,  but  because  I  had  dropped  your  hand, 
I  was  punished  by  not  finding  it  again. 

"Mother  suffered  so  much  that  I  could  not  wish 
to  keep  her.  For  two  days  and  nights  after  she 
went,  I  lay  in  a  kind  of  stupor.  You  see,  I  had  n't 
slept  more  than  an  hour  out  of  the  twenty-four,  for 
weeks,  so  I  suppose  I  had  to  make  up  somehow,  or 
break.  I  was  hardly  conscious  at  all,  and  they  let 
me  lie  without  rousing  me  up  to  eat  or  drink.  But  at 
last  I  waked  of  my  own  accord,  out  of  a  dream,  it 
must  have  been,  though  I  don't  remember  the  dream. 


THE  LETTERS  223 

I  remember  only  that  I  thought  you  were  calling  me, 
though  the  voice  sounded  like  his.  Immediately 
after,  I  seemed  to  hear  the  words,  'John  Sanbourne 
believes  you  've  stopped  writing  to  him  because  you 
were  vexed  at  his  refusal  of  the  photograph.'  I 
started  up,  tingling  all  over  with  shame,  for  I  saw 
that  it  might  easily  be  true.  I  did  n't  go  to  sleep 
again.  I  asked  for  a  telegraph  form,  and  sent  the 
cable  to  you  which  I  know  you  received  next  day, 
because  of  the  date  of  your  answer. 

"I  beg  of  you  not  to  take  your  friendship  away 
from  me.  I  shall  need  it  more  than  ever  now,  if 
possible,  because  my  mother  is  gone.  I  don't  feel 
that  she  will  come  back  to  me  in  spirit,  because 
she  was  unhappy  here,  and  at  the  end  was  glad  to 
go.  She  loved  me,  I  'm  sure,  but  not  in  the  way 
which  makes  one  spirit  indispensable  to  the  other. 
I  think  after  the  war  gloom  of  this  world,  and  her 
own  pain,  she  will  want  to  be  very  quiet  and  peace- 
ful for  a  while  in  beautiful  surroundings,  where  she 
can  feel  young  and  gay  again,  and  not  trouble  her- 
self to  remember  that  she  was  the  mother  of  a 


224       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

grown-up,  sad  woman  down  on  earth.  I  want  her 
spirit  to  be  happy  in  its  own  way,  so  I  'm  not  even 
going  to  try  and  call  her  to  me. 

"She  looked  no  more  than  seventeen  in  her  white 
dress,  in  a  white-lined  coffin;  and  seeing  her  like 
that,  so  young  and  almost  coquettishly  pretty,  made 
me  realize  why  she  had  so  bitterly  regretted  the 
passing  of  her  youth,  and  had  clung  desperately  to 
its  ragged  edges.  I  gave  her  a  bed  and  a  covering 
of  her  favorite  flowers,  though  they  were  not  those 
I  care  for  most :  gardenias  and  camellias  and  orchids. 
I  associate  them  always  with  hot-houses  and  florists' 
shops,  which  seem  to  me  like  the  slave  markets  of  the 
flower  world — don't  they  to  you"? 

"I  beg  of  you  not  to  believe  that  I  forgot,  or  did 
not  keep  turning  in  thought  to  my  friend,  in  those 
long  days  and  nights  when  I  had  n't  time  to  write, 
or  could  n't  risk  the  rustle  of  a  sheet  of  paper,  or  the 
scratch  of  a  pen.  I  thought  of  you  constantly,  es- 
pecially in  the  night  when  I  sat  beside  mother,  not 
daring  to  stir  or  draw  a  long  breath  if  she  slept. 
I  reviewed  all  the  past,  since  August  i8th,  1914,  and 


THE  LETTERS  225 

as  if  I  had  been  an  outsider,  saw  myself  as  I  was  be- 
fore I  read  your  book — before  I  wrote  to  you,  and 
gained  your  friendship  for  my  strong  prop. 

"I  was  a  child  in  those  days.  I  could  n't  face 
grief  and  realize  that  it  must  be  borne.  All  the 
small,  dear,  warm,  cushiony  things  of  life  as  I  had 
lived  it,  seemed  the  only  ones  which  ought  to  be 
real.  I  clung  to  them.  I  wanted  to  shut  out  sor- 
row and  hide  away  from  it  by  drawing  rose-colored 
blinds  across  my  windows.  I  was  a  shivering  crea- 
ture who  had  been  caught  in  a  sleety  rain  and  soaked 
through  to  the  skin.  I  ran  home  out  of  the  sleet, 
thinking  to  pull  those  rose-colored  curtains  and  put 
on  dry  clothes  and  warm  myself  at  the  fire.  But 
the  curtains  had  been  ripped  away.  There  were  no 
dry  clothes,  and  no  fire.  There  was  no  help  or  com- 
fort anywhere.  The  world  marched  in  an  army 
against  me.  Only  misery  was  real ;  in  vain  to  writhe 
away  from  it;  it  was  everywhere.  Horror  and  an- 
guish poured  through  me,  as  water  pours  into  a  leak- 
ing ship.  My  soul  was  withering  in  the  cold.  The 
bulwarks  of  my  character  were  beaten  down.  Then 


226       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

you  came  into  my  life.  You  did  n't  give  me  back 
my  rose-colored  curtains  to  hide  the  face  of  sorrow, 
but  you  taught  me  how  to  look  into  sorrow's  eyes, 
and  find  beauty  and  wonder  beyond  anything  I  had 
ever  known.  You  let  me  creep  into  a  temple  you 
had  built,  and  learn  great  truths  which  you  had 
found  out  through  your  own  suffering.  I  knew  you 
had  written  your  book  with  your  heart's  blood,  or 
you  could  n't  have  made  my  heart  fill  with  life  and 
beat  again.  You  couldn't  have  reached  me  where 
I  was  cowering,  far,  far  below  tear-level. 

"Even  when  I  could  see  by  your  letters  that  you 
had  n't  quite  been  able  to  shake  off  chains  of  de- 
pression from  yourself,  you  had  the  power  to  re- 
lease others.  What  a  splendid  power!  Did  you 
realize  that  you  had  it,  when  you  wrote  your  book, 
I  wonder? 

"You  showed  me  what  to  do  with  the  strange 
forces  I  could  feel  blindly  groping  in  my  soul.  You 
showed  me  that  philosophy  should  n't  be  a  brew  of 
poppies  to  drown  regrets,  but  a  tonic,  a  stimulant. 
You  taught  me  that  hope  must  live  in  the  heart,  be- 


THE  LETTERS  227 

cause  hope  is  knowledge  wrapped  up  in  our  subcon- 
sciousness,  and  spilling  rays  of  light  through  the 
wrappings.  You  gave  me  the  glorious  advice  not  to 
waste  life,  which  must  be  lived,  by  trying  to  kill 
Time,  making  him  die  a  dull  death  at  bedtime  every 
night,  but  to  run  hand  in  hand  with  him — run  wher- 
ever he  might  be  going,  because  things  worth  while 
might  be  ready  to  happen  round  the  very  next  bend 
of  the  future. 

"This  was  the  lesson  I  needed  most,  because  I  'd 
forgotten  that  if  there  was  no  intimate  personal  joy 
left  for  me  in  this  world,  there  was  for  others;  and 
even  I  might  help  them  to  find  it,  by  having  the 
bright  courage  of  my  imagination,  instead  of  the 
dull  courage  of  convictions. 

"You  made  me  believe  (even  though  I  can't  al- 
ways live  up  to  the  belief)  that  when  we  are  hor- 
ribly unhappy,  we  're  only  seeing  a  beautiful,  bright 
landscape  reflected  gray-green,  in  our  own  little 
cracked  and  dusty  mirror,  distorted  in  its  cramped 
frame.  While  Mother  was  ill,  and  other  troubles 
pressed  on  me  heavily,  I  often  reminded  myself  of 


228       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

those  words  of  yours,  in  a  many-times-read  letter; 
and  I  tried  to  turn  my  eyes  away  from  the  poor 
cracked  mirror,  dim  with  the  dust  which  I  had  stu- 
pidly thought  was  the  dust  of  my  own  destiny; 
tried  to  look  instead  at  the  clear  truth  of  things. 

"In  the  same  letter  (one  of  those  I  treasure  most; 
for  I  've  kept  all,  and  always  shall  keep  them)  you 
gave  me  another  thought  that  has  done  me  good. 
You  said  it  had  only  just  come  to  you  as  you  wrote 
to  me.  Do  you  remember'?  You  were  wondering 
if  our  Real  Selves  (the  'realities  behind  the  Things' 
you  've  spoken  of  so  often)  exist  uninterruptedly  on 
the  Etheric  Plane,  to  be  joined  there  by  the  souls  of 
the  earthbound-  selves,  each  time  they  finish  with 
their  bodies.  'Imagine  the  soul  arriving  from  earth, 
pouring  its  new  experiences  into  the  mind  of  its  Real 
Self,'  you  said,  'and  receiving  in  return  memories  of 
all  it  had  ever  lived  through,  learning  the  reason 
why  of  every  sorrow  and  joy,  and  never  quite  for- 
getting, though  it  might  think  it  had  forgotten.' 

"Oh,  I  thank  you,  my  friend,  for  every  mental 
growing  pain  you  have  given  me !  Instead  of  for- 


THE  LETTERS  229 

getting  what  I  owed  you,  in  those  weeks  of  silence, 
I  realized  it  all  more  and  more,  and  resolved  to  be 
worthier  of  my  lessons  when  the  strain  on  my  new 
strength  increased,  as  it  is  bound  to  do,  with  mother 
gone.  I  shall  try,  that 's  all  I  can  say.  I  don't 
know  how  I  shall  win  through.  And  I  shall  have 
more  to  thank  you  for,  if  you  tell  me  that  our  friend- 
ship has  n't  been  disturbed  by  my  seeming  ingrati- 
tude. 

"Did  you  ever  see  those  queer  little  dried-up  Japa- 
nese flowers  which  seem  utterly  dead  till  you  throw 
them  into  water  ?  Then  they  expand  and  remember 
that  they  are  alive.  I  am  one  of  them.  Don't 
pour  off  the  water.  I  'm  afraid  if  you  did,  I  might 
be  weak  enough  to  dry  up  again." 


CHAPTER  XV 

TO  get  back  the  jewel  he  had  thought  lost,  was 
to  be  born  into  a  new  life  in  a  new  world. 
Denin  had  to  tell  the  portrait  in  the  redwood  frame, 
what  he  felt,  for  he  dared  not  tell  Barbara  herself. 
To  have  given  her  a  glimpse  of  his  heart  would  have 
been  to  show  that  its  fire  had  not  been  kindled  by 
friendship.  His  answer  to  her  letter  was  so  tame, 
so  lifeless  compared  to  the  song  of  his  soul,  that  it 
seemed  something  to  laugh  at — or  to  weep  over. 
But  there  was  a  line  he  must  not  pass.  He  knew 
this  well,  and  that  his  only  happiness  could  be  in 
the  Mirador  and  in  Barbara's  friendly  letters,  as 
long  as  she  cared  to  write.  Mr.  Carl  Pohlson  Brad- 
ley might  go  on  bidding  for  the  Mirador  up  to  a 
million  if  he  liked.  There  was  no  chance  of  his 
getting  it!  Denin  was  as  sure  of  that,  as  he  was 

of  the  shape  of  the  world,  or  perhaps  a  little  surer. 

230 


THE  LETTERS  231 

Then,  one  day,  a  thunderbolt  fell  in  the  garden.  It 
was  dropped  by  the  postman,  in  the  form  of  a  letter. 
Barbara  wrote,  "Everything  is  changed  since  I 
wrote  you  six  days  ago.  I  can't  live  here  any  lon- 
ger, under  the  same  roof  with  a  man  whose  one  pleas- 
ure is  to  torture  and  insult  me.  I  have  n't  spoken 
about  him  to  you  lately.  There  was  no  need,  but 
things  grew  no  better  between  us — worse,  rather,  for 
he  resented  the  calmness  I  was  finding  through  you. 
It  made  him  furious  apparently,  that  he  had  no  lon- 
ger the  same  power  over  me  as  at  first,  to  drive  me 
away  from  him,  crying,  or  shaking  all  over  with 
shame  and  anger  at  the  dreadful  things  he  said.  I 
hardly  cared  at  all  of  late  days,  when  he  called  me 
a  hypocrite,  or  a  liar,  or  a  damned  fool,  or  other 
names  far  worse.  I  paid  him  a  visit  morning  and 
evening,  or  at  other  times  if  he  sent  for  me,  and  went 
out  motoring  or  driving  with  him  when  he  felt  well 
enough  to  go.  He  refused  to  move  without  me,  and 
so,  as  the  doctor  ordered  fresh  air  for  him,  I  could  n't 
refuse.  When  he  was  at  his  worst — or  what  I 
thought  the  worst  then — I  could  look  straight  ahead, 


232       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

and  think  of  things  you  said,  hardly  bearing  his 
abuse. 

"  This  is  my  "bit"  to  do  in  the  war  days,'  I  re- 
minded myself,  and  thought  maybe  my  kind  of  fight- 
ing was  almost  as  hard  to  do  as  the  fighting  in  the 
trenches.  Besides,  I  never  lost  sight  of  what  you 
answered  when  I  first  told  you  how  hard  it  was, 
living  up  to  obligations  I  'd  taken  on  myself.  You 
said,  'We  're  all  sparks  of  the  one  Great  Fire,  some 
brighter  than  others.  We  can't  hate  each  other  for 
long  without  finding  out  that  it 's  as  bad  as  hating 
ourselves.'  Truly,  I  quite  brought  myself  to  stop 
hating  him.  I  only  pitied,  and  tried  to  help,  as 
much  as  he  would  let  me.  But  I  see  now  that  it 
was  all  in  vain.  I  can't  do  him  any  good  by  stay- 
ing, and — well,  I  just  simply  can't  bear  it!  He  is 
too  ill  to  be  moved.  This  dear  old  house  will  have 
to  be  his  home  while  he  drags  on  his  death  in  life — 
which  may  mean  years.  So  I,  not  he,  must  go. 

"Lest  you  should  blame  me  too  much,  I  will  tell 
you  what  happened,  though  I  was  n't  sure  I  would 
do  so  when  I  began  to  write. 


THE  LETTERS  233 

"His  valet  is  a  trained  nurse,  a  repellent  person, 
though  competent,  with  dull  eyes  and  a  face  which 
looks  as  if  it  had  petrified  under  his  skin,  because  his 
soul — if  any — belongs  to  the  Stone  Age.  The 
creature's  name  happens  to  be  Stone,  too;  and  if  he 
has  any  feeling  it  is  love  of  money.  His  master  has 
been  bribing  him,  it  seems,  to  spy  upon  me.  While 
I  was  away  from  the  house,  at  my  mother's  funeral, 
Stone  was  searching  the  drawers  of  my  desk  in  the 
octagon  study  I  've  told  you  about,  where  I  like  to  sit 
because  it  was  my  dearest  one's  favorite  room. 

"I  had  never  thought  of  hiding  your  letters. 
There  was  nothing  in  them  which  needed  to  be  hid- 
den. Besides,  it  never  occurred  to  me  that  cruel  sus- 
picions and  disgusting  ideas  of  baseness  were  wrig- 
gling round  me,  like  little  snakes  that  peep  out  from 
between  the  rough  stones  in  a  ruined  wall.  There 
they  all  were,  bound  together  in  a  packet,  the  kind, 
brave  letters  that  have  been  my  salvation!  Stone 
took  them  to  his  master,  who  sent  for  me  when  I 
came  home  after  the  funeral. 

"As  soon  as  I  saw  him,  I  knew  that  something  un- 


234       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

usual  had  happened.  He  flung  his  'discovery'  of 
the  letters  into  my  face.  He  told  me  that  he  had 
burnt  all  but  a  few  which  he  would  keep  to  'use5 
against  me,  and  tried  to  frighten  me  into  promising 
never  to  write  to  'this  John  Sanbourne'  again.  Of 
course  I  gave  no  promise.  Instead,  I  told  him  that 
what  he  had  done  and  said  freed  me  from  him  for- 
ever. Then  I  went  out  of  the  room  and  left  him 
there,  helpless  on  his  sofa.  For  the  first  time  I  felt 
no  pity  for  him  whatever — not  so  much  as  I  should 
feel  for  a  crushed  wasp  who  had  stung  me.  I 
have  n't  seen  him  since.  I  don't  intend  to  see  him 
again.  But  when  I  could  get  my  thoughts  in  order 
after  the  fire  of  fury  had  cooled  a  little,  I  wrote 
to  him.  I  said  that  I  was  sending  for  a  lawyer,  and 
would  make  some  arrangement  so  that  he  should 
want  for  nothing.  I  told  him  that  he  might  stay 
at  Gorston  Old  Hall  as  long  as  he  wished,  but  that 
I  was  going  away  almost  immediately.  Once  gone, 
I  should  never  return  while  he  was  in  the  house.  I 
have  always  thought  divorce  very  dreadful ;  but  now 
I  see  how  one's  point  of  view  changes  when  one's 


THE  LETTERS  235 

own  interest  is  at  stake.  If  I  could,  I  would  divorce 
this  man,  with  whom  my  marriage  has  been  a  tragic 
farce.  But  I  have  no  case  against  him  legally.  I 
knew  when  I  consented  to  call  myself  his  wife,  that 
I  should  never  be  his  wife  really,  and  so,  my  solicitor 
says,  I  could  not  even  sue  for  nullity  of  marriage. 
It  was  n't  I  who  thought  of  that.  I  don't  remem- 
ber having  heard  the  term  mentioned,  though  per- 
haps I  have,  without  noticing,  when  such  things 
seemed  as  far  from  my  life  as  the  earth  from  Mars. 
It  was  the  lawyer  who  brought  up  the  subject,  but 
added  the  instant  after,  that  nothing  could  be  done, 
in  the  way  of  legal  separation  of  any  kind.  He  ad- 
vised me  to  send  the  man  away  from  Gorston  Old 
Hall,  saying  that  I  should  be  more  than  justified. 
But  I  would  n't  agree  to  do  that.  For  one  thing,  it 
would  be  like  physical  cruelty  to  a  wounded  ani- 
mal. For  another  thing — even  a  stronger  reason- 
Ac  temptation  to  send  him  away  was — and  is — ter- 
ribly strong. 

"I  could  feel  myself  trying  to  justify  the  idea 
to  my  own  soul,  as  if  I  were  pleading  a  case  before 


236       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

a  tribunal.  I  could  hear  myself  argue  that  it  was 
unfair  to  let  such  a  man  enjoy  the  home  of  my  Dear- 
est, whom  he  had  already  superseded  too  long.  But 
I  knew,  deep  within  myself,  that  my  Dearest  would 
be  the  very  one  of  all  others  to  say,  'Let  him  stay 
on,'  if  he  could  come  back  and  speak  to  us.  In  that 
same  deep  down,  hidden  place,  was  the  knowledge 
of  my  real  reason  for  wanting  the  man  to  go.  To 
move  him  might  easily  break  off  the  thread  of  his 
life.  That  was  the  temptation :  to  do  a  thing  which 
might  seem  just  to  every  one  who  heard  the  circum- 
stances, and  to  get  rid  of  the  intolerable  burden — 
to  be  absolutely  free  of  it  as  I  could  be  in  no  other 
way. 

"Of  my  own  self,  I  'm  afraid  I  could  n't  have  re- 
sisted the  temptation.  I  should  probably  have 
thrown  all  responsibility  on  my  solicitor,  and  let  him 
settle  everything  as  he  thought  best.  The  strength 
to  resist  has  come  through  you,  and  what  you  have 
taught  me.  So  it  is  that  this  man  who  has  insulted 
you,  and  burned  your  letters,  owes  his  comforts  and 
perhaps  his  life  itself,  to  you. 


THE  LETTERS  237 

"There  are  many  things  which  it  is  hard  to  for- 
give him,  but  I  think  the  hardest  of  all  is  the  loss 
of  the  letters.  To  lose  them  is  like  losing  my  talis- 
man. But  the  ones  he  was  keeping  as  a  threat,  I 
shall  have  again.  The  solicitor  says  he  will  force 
the  man  to  give  them  up. 

"Now  that  my  leaving  this  dear  house  is  settled, 
the  next  question  is,  What  shall  I  do  with  my  life, 
since  my  services  as  an  untrained  nurse  are  no  longer 
pledged  here?  Already,  though  only  a  few  days 
have  passed,  I  've  decided  how  to  answer  that  ques- 
tion. I  shall  go  into  some  hospital  as  a  probationer, 
and  as  soon  as  I  am  qualified,  I  shall  offer  my  serv- 
ices to  the  Red  Cross.  That  may  be  sooner  than 
with  most  amateurs,  for  already  I  've  learned  almost 
as  much  about  nursing  as  hospital  training  of  a 
year  could  have  taught  me.  Wherever  I  'm  sent, 
I  'm  willing  to  go.  But  before  I  take  up  this  new 
work,  I  have  a  plan  to  carry  out.  Oh,  how  I  won- 
der what  you  will  say  to  it ! 

"Only  a  few  weeks  before  she  went  out  of  the 
world,  a  cousin  of  my  father's  left  Mother  some 


238       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

property  in  California,  quite  valuable  property,  near 
Bakersfield.  I  don't  know  if  you  have  ever  been 
there,  but  of  course  you  've  heard  that  it  is  a  great 
oil  country.  There  are  big  wells  on  this  property. 
If  it  had  come  to  Mother  earlier,  she  would  have 
been  overjoyed,  because  it  would  have  made  all  the 
difference  between  skimping  poverty  and  compara- 
tive riches.  It  came  too  late  for  her,  and  for  me  it 
is  n't  very  important,  so  far  as  the  money  is  con- 
cerned. There  's  another  thing  that  makes  it  im- 
portant, though.  The  place  is  in  California!  It 
seems  like  mending  a  link  in  a  broken  chain,  to  own 
land  in  dear  California  again. 

"Mother  always  said  she  would  hate  to  go  back, 
but  I  never  felt  like  that.  Now,  it  seems  to  be 
rather  necessary  for  me  to  go — or  to  send  some  one, 
to  look  into  things  which  concern  the  property.  We 
hear  there  has  been  mismanagement — perhaps  dis- 
honesty. Of  course  I  know  nothing  about  business 
myself,  and  should  be  of  no  use.  But  if  I  went  to 
California,  I  would  engage  some  good  lawyer  on  the 
spot,  to  take  care  of  my  interests :  and,  /  could  meet 


THE  LETTERS  239 

,)  my  friend.  That  is,  I  could  if  you  were  will- 
ing. Would  you  be  *?  Would  you  welcome  me  if  I 
came  one  day  to  the  gate  of  the  little  garden,  and 
begged,  'Dear  Hermit  of  the  Mirador,  will  you  give 
a  poor  tired  traveler  lunch  in  your  pergola?' 

"You  see  now  that  the  legacy  is  only  an  excuse. 
I  confess  it.  I  shouldn't  go  to  California  just  to 
straighten  out  things  at  the  oil  fields — no,  not  even 
if  I  lost  the  property  by  not  going.  But  to  see  my 
friend  who  has  given  me  back  life,  and  love  in  the 
sweetness  of  memory  and  hope  of  future  usefulness, 
I  would  travel  with  joy  across  the  whole  world  in- 
stead of  half. 

"I  know  you  refused  to  send  your  photograph,  be- 
cause I  'might  be  disillusioned.'  But  I  could  n't  be 
disillusioned,  because  there  's»no  illusion.  Do  I  care 
what  your  looks  may  be?  If  you  are  ugly,  I  'm 
sure  it 's  a  beautiful,  brave  ugliness.  Anyhow,  I 
should  think  it  so.  Please,  therefore,  don't  put  me 
off  for  any  such  reason  as  you  gave  about  the  photo- 
graph. It  isn't  really  worthy  of  you,  or  even  of 
me.  Let  us  dare  to  be  frank  with  each  other.  I  've 


240       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

told  you  how  much  I  want  to  see  you  and  what  it 
would  mean  to  me.  In  return  you  must  tell  me 
whether  you  want  me  to  come,  or  whether,  because 
of  some  real  reason  (which  you  may  or  may  not 
choose  to  explain)  you  wish  me  to  stay  away. 

"When  you  get  this,  there  will  be  only  time  to 
telegraph  to — Yours  ever  in  unbreakable  friendship, 
Barbara  Denin." 


PART  III 
BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THERE  was  a  great  wind  wailing  over  the 
sea,  on  the  day  that  Barbara's  letter  was 
brought  to  Denin.  The  wind  seemed  to  come  from 
the  four  corners  of  the  earth,  laden  with  all  the 
stormy  sorrow  of  the  world  since  men  and  women 
first  loved  and  lost  each  other.  The  voice  was  old 
as  death  and  young  as  life,  and  the  heartbreak  of 
unending  processions  of  lovers  was  the  message  it 
brought  to  the  Mirador  garden.  Denin  knew  be- 
cause he  had  heard  through  the  fire-music  of  life, 
that  there  was  another  voice  and  another  message 
for  those  who  would  listen.  He  knew  that  higher 
than  tragedy  rang  the  notes  of  endless  triumph; 
that  the  message  of  love  went  on  forever  beyond 
the  break  of  the  note  of  loss.  He  knew  the  les- 
son he  had  so  hardly  taught  himself  and  Barbara: 
that  happiness  is  stronger  than  sorrow,  as  all  things 

positive  are  stronger  than  all  negative  things.     But 

243 


244       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

the  big  truths  of  the  universe  were  too  big  for  him 
that  day.  The  thought  that  he  might  see  Barbara, 
and  yet  must  not  see  her,  shut  out  all  the  rest. 

There  had  been,  it  seemed,  only  one  honorable 
course  open  when  he  had  decided  to  sacrifice  his 
place  in  life  to  save  Barbara  from  scandal  and  to 
let  her  keep  her  happiness.  It  was  very  different 
now.  Her  marriage  with  Trevor  d'Arcy  had  not 
been  a  marriage  of  love.  It  had  been  worse  than  a 
failure.  She  had  loved  only  one  man,  John  Denin. 
Why  not  let  her  come  and  find  him"? 

But  no,  the  trial  would  be  too  great.  It  would 
not  be  fair  to  put  the  girl,  still  almost  a  child,  to 
such  a  test.  Her  love  for  Denin  had  been  a  delicate 
poem.  He  had  died,  and  his  memory  was  cherished 
in  her  heart,  as  a  rose  of  romance.  There  was  no 
human  passion  in  such  a  gentle  love,  and  only  the 
strongest  passion  could  pass  through  the  ordeal  he 
proposed.  She  might  hate  him  for  his  long  silence, 
and  blame  him  for  deceit.  She  would  see  herself 
disgraced  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  nothing  that 
he  could  give  would  repay  her  for  all  that  she  must 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        245 

lose.  No  love  could  be  expected  to  stand  such  a 
test,  much  less  the  love  of  a  child  for  an  ideal  which 
had  never,  in  truth,  existed.  It  would  break  her 
heart  to  fail,  and  break  his  to  have  her  fail.  The 
memory  of  a  meeting  and  a  parting  would  be  for 
him  a  second  death — death  by  torture.  The  temp- 
tation to  let  things  take  their  course  was  overcome. 
Indeed,  he  no  longer  felt  it  as  a  temptation;  never- 
theless he  suffered. 

Some  reason  for  putting  her  off  must  be  alleged, 
but  there  was  time  to  think  of  that  afterwards,  be- 
tween the  telegram  and  letter  which  would  follow. 
The  great  thing  was  to  prevent  her  from  coming  to 
the  Mirador,  and  finding  out  what  a  tragic  tangle 
she  had  made  of  her  life. 

When  he  had  sent  the  cable,  and  was  at  home 
again,  Benin  read  once  more  all  of  Barbara's  closely 
written  pages.  At  the  end  he  kissed  the  dear 
name  with  a  kiss  of  mingled  passion  and  renuncia- 
tion. 

"She  '11  think  I  have  no  more  heart  than  a  stone," 
he  said  to  himself.  "Her  friendship  for  Sanbourne 


246       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

will  crumble  to  pieces."  Ineffably  he  longed  to 
keep  it — all  that  he  had  in  life  of  sunshine.  Yet  he 
could  not  see  how  to  account  for  his  refusal  without 
lying,  and  without  appearing  in  her  eyes  cold  as  a 
block  of  marble.  He  looked  at  the  letter — which 
might  be  her  last — as  a  man  might  look  at  a  beloved 
face  about  to  be  hidden  in  a  coffin:  and  suddenly 
the  date  sprang  to  his  eyes. 

For  all  his  reading  and  re-reading  he  had  not 
noticed  it  before.  There  had  been  a  delay.  The 
letter  had  been  several  days  longer  than  usual  in 
reaching  him.  What  if  she  had  grown  tired  of 
awaiting  the  asked-for  cable,  and  had  chosen  to  take 
silence  for  consent? 

The  certainty  that  this  was  so  seized  upon  Denin. 

» 

He  was  suddenly  as  sure  that  Barbara  was  on  the 
way  to  him,  as  if  he  had  just  heard  the  news  of  her 
starting.  If,  honestly  and  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart  he  wanted  to  save  her  a  tragic  awakening  from 
dreams,  he  must  leave  nothing  to  chance.  He  must 
be  up  and  doing.  It  was  not  impossible,  even  if  she 
had  waited  four  days  for  a  cable,  and  started  im- 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        247 

pulsively  off  on  the  fifth,  that  she  might  walk  in  at 
the  gate  of  the  Mirador  garden,  a  week  from  that 
night,  so  Benin  hastily  calculated.  How  was  he 
to  be  gone  before  she  came — if  she  did  come — with- 
out humiliating  the  dear  visitor  by  seeming  deliber- 
ately to  avoid  her?  How  could  John  Sanbourne's 
absence  be  accounted  for  in  some  reasonable  and  im- 
personal way,  if  Lady  Benin  arrived  at  Santa  Bar- 
bara enquiring  for  him? 

In  his  need  of  a  pretext,  he  recalled  the  offer 
which  he  had  laughed  at;  Carl  Pohlson  Bradley's 
offer  to  buy  the  Mirador  in  its  garden.  The  man 
would  snap  at  the  chance  to  get  his  way  so  soon. 
In  a  few  days  the  business  could  be  settled,  and 
Sanbourne  could  be  gone.  But  where?  And 
Benin  sought  anxiously  to  provide  the  "good  rea- 
son" at  which  he  had  hinted  to  Barbara,  in  his  cable 
forbidding  her  to  come. 

Even  if  he  had  sold  the  Mirador  before  receiving 
his  friend's  letter,  he  might  have  waited  to  see  her. 
He  could  have  stayed  on  in  a  hotel,  if  the  new 
owner  of  the  place  had  been  impatient.  No,  selling 


248       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

his  house  was  but  one  step  of  the  journey.  What 
should  the  next  one  be*? 

Almost  instantly  the  solution  of  the  whole  diffi- 
culty presented  itself  to  his  mind.  A  few  days  be- 
fore, he  had  sent  a  subscription  to  a  fund  for  or- 
ganizing a  relief  expedition  to  Serbia.  The  appeal 
had  come  to  John  Sanbourne  through  his  publisher. 
And  even  as  he  wrote  his  check,  he  had  thought,  if 
it  were  not  for  the  exquisite  bond  of  friendship  which 
tied  him  to  a  fixed  address — the  address  of  the 
Mirador — how  easy  it  would  be  to  give  himself  as 
well  as  his  money,  to  the  cause  of  Serbia  in  distress. 
Not  only  doctors  and  nurses  were  wanted  for  the 
expedition,  but  men  of  independent  means,  able  to 
act  as  hospital  orderlies  and  in  other  ways. 

Physically,  Benin  had  not  yet  got  back  the  full 
measure  of  his  old  strength.  After  all  these  months, 
he  would  be  of  no  use  as  a  fighting  man.  He  limped 
after  a  hard  walk;  and  often  with  a  change  of 
weather  he  suffered  sharp  pain,  as  if  his  old  wounds 
were  new.  But  he  could  stand  a  long  journey,  and 
surely  he  would  be  equal  to  the  work  of  an  orderly, 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        249 

perhaps  something  better.  If  there  were  dangers  to 
meet  in  Serbia,  he  would  welcome  them,  whatever 
they  might  be.  To  die  would  be  to  adjust  things 
as  they  could  be  adjusted  in  no  other  way.  Since 
August  18,  1914,  John  Benin  had  had  no  right  to 
live. 

The  more  he  thought  of  it,  the  wiser  seemed  the 
Serbian  plan.  With  Bradley's  money,  he  could  do 
five  times  more  for  the  Red  Cross  fund  than  he  had 
hoped  to  do.  What  mattered  the  wrench  of  parting 
from  the  Mirador*?  The  only  thing  that  really  mat- 
tered, as  before,  was  saving  Barbara  from  pain. 
She  would  not  be  hurt  if  she  came  and  found  him 
gone  on  such  an  errand  as  this,  for  it  was  one  which 
could  not  wait.  Later,  she  would  understand  even 
more  clearly,  for  he  would  write  a  letter  and  send 
it  to  Gorston  Old  Hall,  where  some  servant  would 
have  been  given  a  forwarding  address.  Thus  he 
need  not  quite  lose  his  friend.  She  would  forgive 
his  going  away,  and  write  to  him  in  Serbia. 

Benin  calculated  that  Barbara  could  not  have 
sailed  from  England  until  at  least  five  or  six  days 


250       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

after  sending  her  letter  to  him.  Probably  she  would 
not  have  sailed  so  soon.  Apparently,  when  writing, 
she  had  only  just  made  up  her  mind  that  Gorston 
Old  Hall  was  unbearable.  There  would  have  been 
many  things  to  arrange,  and  business  to  settle  with 
her  solicitor,  friends  to  say  good-by  to.  She  could 
not  possibly  reach  Santa  Barbara  even  if  she  trav- 
eled with  the  most  unlikely  haste,  until  the  end  of 
the  week.  That  she  should  arrive  on  Saturday 
would  be  almost  a  miracle.  It  was  Monday  now, 
and  Thursday  might  see  him  away  from  the  place 
where  he  had  dreamed  of  passing  all  his  days.  Now 
that  he  had  thrown  off  the  dream,  he  saw  it  a  fan- 
tastic vision.  As  vigor  of  body  and  mind  came 
back  to  him,  the  boundaries  of  the  Mirador  garden 
would  soon,  in  any  case,  have  become  too  narrow 
for  his  energies.  He  would  have  found  it  neces- 
sary to  shoulder  some  useful  burden,  and  work 
with  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  hour  had  struck 
for  him  now,  and  John  Sanbourne  had  got  his 
marching  orders,  as  John  Denin  had  got  them  long 
ago. 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        251 

He  sent  word  to  Bradley  through  his  lawyer,  that 
the  Mirardor  was  for  sale,  after  all.  Next,  he  tele- 
graphed to  the  leader  of  the  Serbian  Relief  Expedi- 
tion, in  New  York,  and  asked  if  there  was  a  place 
for  him.  Because  the  name  of  John  Sanbourne  was 
known,  an  enthusiastic  answer  came  back  with  great 
promptness.  This  stirred  Benin's  heart,  which, 
despite  his  firm  resolution,  felt  heavy  and  cold.  He 
thought  of  Barbara  coming  to  the  Mirador,  only  to 
find  Mr.  Bradley's  workmen  engaged  in  tearing 
down  the  barrier  between  the  big  garden  and  the 
little  one.  But  now  that  his  course  of  action  was 
decided,  he  supplemented  his  first  cable  to  her  with 
another.  This  was  in  case  his  "presentiment"  were 
wrong,  and  she  had  not  started.  He  told  her  what 
his  "good  reason"  was:  that  he  had  sold  the  Mira- 
dor and  was  starting  at  once  for  Serbia.  Further 
explanations,  he  added,  would  be  given  when  he 
wrote. 

Never  had  a  letter  to  Lady  Benin  been  so  difficult 
for  John  Sanbourne  to  compose,  for  he  could  say 
only  the  things  he  least  wished  to  say;  and  so  the 


252       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

result  of  his  labor  was,  in  the  end,  very  short.     Nev- 
ertheless, it  took  hours  to  write. 

The  day  after  the  sending  of  the  letter  was  largely 
taken  up  by  a  visit  from  Carl  Pohlson  Bradley  and 
his  man  of  business.  Denin  held  the  millionaire  to 
the  last  price  named  by  himself,  for  he  intended  to 
use  the  money  largely  for  the  benefit  of  the  Serbian 
Red  Cross.  At  last  a  contract  was  signed,  and  the 
check  paid  into  John  Sanbourne's  bank  at  Santa 
Barbara.  He  had  still  all  Wednesday  and  part  of 
Thursday  for  packing  and  disposing  of  his  treas- 
ures. The  task  was  easy,  for  the  treasures  were 
few.  He  could  "fold  his  tent  like  an  Arab,  and 
silently  steal  away." 

Denin  did  not  expect  ever  to  return  to  Santa  Bar- 
bara. Having  loved  the  Mirador,  and  given  it  up, 
there  was  no  longer  anything  tangible  to  call  him 
back.  More  likely  than  not,  death  which  had  come 
close  to  him  in  France,  would  come  closer  still  in 
Serbia.  He  would  cast  off  his  body  like  an  outworn 
cloak,  and  free  of  it,  would  knock  once  more  at  the 
gate  where,  once,  he  had  heard  voices  singing. 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        253 

The  one  possession  which  Denin  could  not  bear 
to  give  up,  yet  knew  not  how  to  take,  was  the  por- 
trait of  Barbara  which  he  had  made,  and  framed  in 
redwood.  It  was  large,  and  the  delicate  tints  of  its 
pastels  had  to  be  carefully  protected.  He  could  not 
possibly  include  it  in  his  slender  "kit"  for  Serbia. 
At  last  he  decided  to  pack  frame  and  all  with  pre- 
caution, carry  the  case  to  New  York,  and  leave  it  in 
charge  of  Eversedge  Sibley.  There  would  be  time 
for  a  visit  to  Sibley  before  the  sailing  of  the  ex- 
pedition ;  and  Denin  would  make  his  friend  promise 
to  burn  the  wooden  box  unopened,  if  he  died  abroad. 

Everything  else,  with  the  exception  of  some  fav- 
orite books  which  could  be  slipped  into  his  luggage, 
he  determined  to  give  away.  Gossip  about  the  sale 
of  the  Mirador,  and  Sanbourne's  intended  departure 
for  Serbia,  ran  like  quicksilver,  in  all  directions. 
The  acquaintances  he  had  made — or  rather  acquaint- 
ances who  had  fastened  upon  him — began  calling  to 
enquire  if  the  news  were  true,  and  their  question  an- 
swered itself  before  it  was  asked.  The  hermit  of 
the  Mirador  and  his  faithful  dumb  companion,  a 


254       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

pipe,  were  surrounded  with  the  aimless  confusion  of 
a  hasty  flitting.  Souvenirs  of  John  Sanbourne  had 
their  value,  but  he  did  not  appear  to  know  that.  He 
offered  his  Lares  and  Penates  recklessly,  to  any  one 
who  would  accept.  The  parson's  daughter,  to 
whom — all  unconsciously — he  was  an  ideal  hero, 
took  away  the  pictures,  copies  of  those  the  child 
Barbara  had  loved.  The  parson  himself  got  a  valu- 
able contribution  of  books  for  his  library.  The  fur- 
niture was  given  to  a  young  couple  who  had  taken  a 
bungalow  not  far  off,  and  were  getting  it  ready  with 
an  eye  to  economy.  Dishes  and  linen  went  the  same 
way,  excepting  a  cup  and  saucer  and  teapot  which 
were  clamored  for  with  tears  by  an  old  lady  for 
whom  "The  War  Wedding"  ranked  with  the  Bible. 
Denin  had  allowed  no  one  to  enter  the  balconied 
bedroom,  for  he  had  left  Barbara's  portrait  until  the 
last  minute,  and  no  eyes  but  his  were  to  see  that 
sacred  thing.  Once  the  picture  was  shut  away  and 
nailed  up  between  layers  of  cotton  and  wood,  it 
might  be  that  he  should  never  again  be  greeted  by 
the  dear,  elusive  smile.  The  furniture  from  up- 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        255 

stairs  he  had  added  to  the  confusion  of  the  sitting- 
room  below,  and  early  in  the  afternoon  of  Thursday 
everything  had  been  carted  away  by  the  new  own- 
ers. To  strip  the  house  while  Sanbourne  was  still 
in  it  seemed  heartless,  they  had  protested;  but  he  had 
begged  them  to  do  so.  Mr.  Bradley  was  to  claim 
possession  of  the  place  next  day. 

When  all  those  who  called  themselves  his  friends 
had  bidden  him  good-by,  a  curious  sense  of  peace,  of 
pause  between  storms,  fell  upon  the  departing  her- 
mit of  the  Mirador.  Because  the  little  house  was 
almost  as  empty  and  echoing  as  on  the  day  when  he 
had  seen  it  first,  that  day  lived  again  very  clearly 
in  Benin's  mind.  He  had  sought  a  refuge,  and  had 
found  happiness.  The  spirit  of  Barbara  had  come 
to  him  in  the  garden,  and  had  brought  him  love. 
That  love  he  was  taking  away  with  him,  though  he 
had  to  leave  behind  much  that  was  very  sweet;  and 
now  the  time  had  come  to  say  farewell  to  the  mem- 
ories of  months.  In  three  hours  the  motor  car  was 
due,  which  Denin  had  ordered  to  take  him  and  his 
luggage  to  the  station.  The  most  important  piece 


256       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

of  that  luggage  was  Barbara's  portrait,  and  it  had 
still  to  be  put  into  its  case.  But  he  was  leaving  the 
farewell  to  her  eyes,  till  the  last  moment,  the  last 
second  even. 

Meanwhile  he  walked  in  the  garden,  and  in  the 
jeweled  green  tunnel  of  the  pergola.  There,  in  the 
pergola,  he  had  read  most  of  Barbara's  letters,  and 
answered  them.  He  was  glad  that  no  one  was  ever 
likely  to  stroll  or  sit  in  the  corridor  of  illuminated 
tapestry  after  to-day.  Carl  Pohlson  Bradley  in- 
tended to  have  the  pergola  pulled  down,  and  the 
whole  place  torn  to  pieces  in  order  to  carry  out  the 
grandiose  scheme  of  a  "garden  architect"  whom  he 
had  employed. 

After  the  arrival  of  Barbara's  first  letter,  and  the 
one  in  which  she  confessed  her  love  for  the  dead  John 
Benin,  his  sweetest  association  with  the  pergola  was 
the  companionship  of  a  little  child — only  a  dream 
child,  but  more  real,  it  seemed,  than  any  living  child 
could  be.  It  was  the  child-Barbara  who  had  walked 
day  after  day,  hand  in  hand  with  him  in  the  pergola. 
She  had  welcomed  him  to  the  Mirador  when  he  had 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        257 

come  as  its  owner;  but  after  a  certain  letter  from 
England,  she  had  changed  in  a  peculiarly  thrilling 
way.  The  letter  was  among  the  first  half  dozen; 
but  in  the  growing  packet,  Benin  kept  it  near  the 
top.  It  was  one  of  those  which  he  re-read  oftenest. 
In  it  Barbara  had  said  to  her  friend,  John  Sanbourne, 
"If  my  dear  love  had  lived,  to  make  me  his  wife, 
perhaps  by  this  time  we  should  have  had  a  baby  with 
us.  I  think  often  of  that  little  baby  that  might 
have  been — so  often,  that  I  have  made  it  seem  real. 
It  is  a  great  comfort  to  me.  I  can  almost  believe 
that  its  soul  really  does  exist,  and  that  it  comes  to 
console  me  because  its  warm  little  body  can  never 
be  held  in  my  arms.  I  see  the  tiny  face,  and  the 
great  eyes.  They  are  dark  gray,  like  its  father's. 
And  when  mine  fill  with  tears,  it  lays  little  fingers  on 
them,  fingers  cool  and  light  as  rose  petals.  Oh,  it 
must  exist,  this  baby  soul,  for  it  is  so  loving,  and 
it  has  such  strong  individuality  of  its  own!  I 
could  n't  spare  it  now.  Already,  since  it  first  came 
and  said,  'I  am  the  child  who  ought  to  be  yours  and 
his,'  it  seems  to  have  grown.  It  is  the  realest  thing ! 


258       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

Its  hair  is  darker  and  longer  and  curlier  than  it  used 
to  be.  Perhaps  this  baby  will  always  stay  with  me, 
and  I  shall  see  it  grow  into  boyhood,  then,  at  last, 
into  manhood.  It 's  wonderful  to  have  this  dream- 
baby!  Tell  me,  have  you  ever  had  one"?  I  know 
you  are  alone  in  life,  for  you  have  said  so.  But 
the  more  alone  in  life  one  was,  the  dearer  a  dream- 
baby  might  be." 

After  that  letter,  which  pierced  Benin's  heart  and 
then  poured  balm  into  the  wound,  the  child-Barbara 
who  haunted  the  Mirador  had  changed  for  him,  ex- 
cept in  name;  or  rather  another  child-Barbara  had 
come,  not  a  child  of  ten  or  twelve,  but  a  baby  thing 
with  smoke-blue  eyes  and  little  satin  rings  of  ruddy 
hair.  The  elder  Barbara  did  not  go  away,  but  loved 
the  baby  as  he  did,  helping  him  teach  it  how  to  walk, 
and  talk,  and  think. 

He  wrote  to  Lady  Benin  after  that  letter  of  hers : 
"Yes,  I  too  have  a  dream-child,  but  mine  is  a  little 
girl.  I  hardly  know  how  I  got  on  without  her  be- 
fore she  came." 

"Thank  Heaven  for  memory!"  he  said  to  him- 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES       259 

self  now,  as  he  took  his  last  look  at  the  tunnel  of 
greenery  starred  with  passion-flowers.  "After  all, 
does  it  so  much  matter  whether  we  had  a  beloved 
thing  one  minute  ago,  or  ten  years  ago,  if  it  lives 
always  in  our  hearts'?  Each  tick  of  the  watch 
turns  the  present  into  the  past.  But  in  our  hearts 
there  is  no  past." 

So  he  bade  good-by  to  the  pergola,  and  the  gar- 
den he  had  made  out  of  a  tangled  wilderness.  Then 
he  turned  towards  the  house ;  for  in  the  house  he  had 
to  take  leave  of  the  portrait. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

'"T'LL  get  out  here,  please!"  said  a  woman  in  black, 
_§_  stopping  the  automobile  which  had  brought  her 
from  the  railway  station  within  sight  of  the  Fay 
place.  She  was  tall  and  slender,  and  apparently 
young,  but  her  mourning  veil  was  so  thick  that  it 
lay  like  drifting  coal-smoke  between  her  face  and  the 
curious  stare  of  the  chauffeur. 

"It's  a  querter  of  a  mile  to  the  gate  yet.  And 
I  shan't  charge  any  more  to  take  you  right  to  it,"  he 
explained. 

"I  know — thank  you !"  his  passenger  said.  "But 
I  want  to  walk  the  rest  of  the  way." 

She  had  a  pretty  way  of  speaking,  though  rather 
a  foreign  sort  of  accent,  he  thought.  Perhaps  it  was 
English.  Her  luggage  had  been  left  at  the  sta- 
tion, so  she  was  free  to  do  as  she  pleased,  if  it  amused 

her  to  spoil  her  shoes  with  the  white  dust  of  the  road. 

260 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        261 

She  paid  the  price  agreed  upon,  and  a  dollar  over, 
which  the  chauffeur  acknowledged  with  a  "Thank 
you,  miss!"  As  he  turned  and  drove  away,  how- 
ever, he  wondered  if  he  ought  to  have  called  her 
"miss."  To  be  sure,  she  had  the  air  of  a  girl;  but 
her  manner  was  grave.  He  did  n't  know  one  sort 
of  mourning  from  another;  but  being  a  foreigner 
like  as  not  she  was  one  of  them  war  widows  over 
there. 

The  tall  young  woman  walked  fast  at  first,  as  if 
she  were  in  a  hurry.  Through  the  dark  fog  of  her 
veil  she  looked  at  everything,  gazing  at  each  tree  as 
if  she  recognized  it,  and  at  each  flowering  creeper 
that  flooded  the  wall  of  the  "Fay  place"  with  color. 
She  passed  the  main  gateway,  and  went  on  with- 
out hesitation;  but  as  she  came  near  the  small  gate 
of  the  Mirador  garden,  her  pace  slackened.  She 
moved  very  slowly;  then  fast  again;  and  just  out- 
side the  gate  she  stopped,  the  bosom  of  her  black 
dress  rising  and  falling  as  if  she  were  out  of  breath. 
It  was  as  though  she  were  afraid  to  go  in  at  the 
gate.  But  after  a  minute  of  breathing  hard  she 


262       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

recovered  herself,  and  opened  it,  almost  noiselessly. 

The  path  on  the  other  side  was  arched  over  with 
pepper  trees.  The  woman  in  black  closed  the  gate 
and  latched  it  very  gently,  almost  tenderly.  A  few 
berries,  like  beads  of  pink  coral  from  a  child's  neck- 
lace, lay  on  the  old  gold  of  the  path.  She  tiptoed 
along  to  avoid  treading  on  them.  Presently  the 
path  was  interrupted  by  a  short  flight  of  old  brick 
steps,  and  at  the  top  it  went  on  again.  In  a  mo- 
ment the  little  pink  house  was  in  sight,  backed  by  a 
great  jade-green  olive  tree,  touched  with  silver  in 
the  slanting  light  of  afternoon.  The  garden  was  a 
lovely  riot  of  flowers.  It  looked  sweet  and  wel- 
coming, with  an  old-fashioned  welcome,  but  no  one 
was  there. 

The  woman's  heart  beat,  then  missed  a  beat.  She 
threw  back  her  veil,  and  her  face  shone  out  white 
and  beautiful  as  the  moon  shines  suddenly  through 
a  torn  black  cloud.  It  was  the  face  of  a  girl,  but 
the  eyes  were  the  eyes  of  a  woman.  They  wan- 
dered over  the  garden,  then  focussed  on  the  house. 
The  open  windows  were  curtainless.  There  were 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES       263 

no  chairs  under  the  balcony  which  gave  a  shady  roof 
to  the  front  door.  Instead,  a  few  odds  and  ends  of 
broken  crockery  and  disorderly  wisps  of  straw  lay 
scattered  here  and  there.  Despite  the  welcoming 
charm  of  the  garden,  there  was  an  air  of  desolation 
about  the  place,  which  struck  at  the  woman's  heart. 
Hesitating  no  longer,  she  walked  quickly  up  the 
path,  and  paused  only  at  the  open  door  of  the  little 
pink  house. 

Even  there  she  stopped  only  for  a  few  seconds. 
The  room  inside  was  stripped  of  furniture.  There 
was  no  need  to  knock.  The  woman  walked  in  and 
looked  through  the  door  of  the  "parlor"  into  the 
kitchen  where  a  child  had  once  cooked  dinners  for 
her  dolls.  It  also  was  empty. 

"Gone !"  The  word  dropped  from  her  lips.  She 
did  not  know  that  she  had  spoken  until  a  whispering 
echo  of  emptiness  answered.  Suddenly  she  realized 
that  she  was  very  tired,  more  tired  than  she  had 
ever  been  in  her  life  before.  She  seemed  to  have 
come  to  the  end  of  the  world,  and  to  have  found 
nothing  there  but  a  stone  wall. 


264       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

"Oh!"  she  said,  and  covered  her  face  with  her 
hands,  shivering,  though  the  sun  outside  the  de- 
serted house  was  warm.  When  her  hands  fell,  there 
were  no  tears  in  her  eyes,  but  they  were  like  blind 
eyes  yearning  for  sight. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  the  house  was  trying  to  tell 
the  secret  of  what  had  happened.  Stripped  as  it 
was,  she  had  the  impression  that  it  was  full  of  in- 
telligence and  kindness.  She  listened  at  the  foot  of 
the  stairs.  Perhaps  the  owner  of  the  house  had  not 
really  gone  yet.  Perhaps  he  was  up  there.  Per- 
haps for  some  reason  he  had  to  leave  this  place,  but 
was  waiting  for  Some  One  he  expected.  Surely  that 
must  be  so!  Surely  he  would  not  go  away,  just  at 
this  time? 

When  she  had  listened,  and  heard  nothing,  she 
called  his  name,  softly  at  first,  then  more  loudly. 
But  there  was  no  answer.  If  he  were  in  the  room 
above,  he  must  have  heard.  Oh,  the  poor  little  room 
with  the  balcony,  where  a  child  had  looked  out  over 
the  garden,  and  played  that  fairies  lived  in  the  olive 
trees ! 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        265 

The  girl  was  slightly  made  and  light  of  foot,  but 
she  went  up  the  steep  steps  heavily,  like  a  weary 
woman  who  feels  herself  old,  very  old.  The  door 
of  the  balconied  bedroom  was  shut.  Maybe,  after 
all,  he  might  not  have  heard  her  call !  She  knocked, 
once,  twice,  then  turned  the  knob  and  timidly  pushed 
open  the  door.  She  could  see  nothing  inside  the 
room  but  a  packing-case,  with  a  wooden  cover 
propped  against  it,  and  a  box  of  bright  new  nails 
beside  it  on  the  bare,  tiled  floor. 

The  intruder  stepped  over  the  threshold,  and  saw 
that,  at  the  further  end  of  the  room  out  of  sight  from 
the  door,  stood  a  small  leather  portmanteau — pathet- 
ically small,  somehow — and  a  still  smaller  suitcase. 
He  had  not  gone,  then! — and  she  had  no  right  to 
be  here,  in  his  room.  She  turned  hastily  to  go  out, 
and  facing  the  door — blown  partly  shut  by  the 
breeze  from  an  open  window,  she  also  faced  a  por- 
trait framed  in  a  wonderful  frame  of  ruddy,  rippled 
wood,  like  the  auburn  hair  of  a  woman.  The  eyes 
of  the  portrait — smoke-blue  eyes — looked  straight 
into  hers.  And  as  she  looked  back  into  them,  it  was 


266       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

like  seeing  herself  in  a  mirror,  a  mysterious  mirror 
which  refused  to  reflect  her  mourning  clothes,  and 
gave  her  instead  a  white  dress. 

This  was  so  strange  a  thing,  that  the  girl  could  not 
believe  she  really  saw  it.  She  thought  that  she  must 
be  asleep  in  the  train,  on  the  way  to  Santa  Barbara, 
and  that  in  her  eager  impatience  she  had  dreamed 
ahead.  This  would  explain  the  deserted  house. 
She  was  only  dreaming  that  she  had  walked  up  the 
garden  path,  and  had  found  her  friend  gone — gone 
to  avoid  her.  How  like  a  dream! — the  strain  to 
succeed,  and  then  failure  and  vague  disappointment 
wherever  one  turned!  How  like  a  dream  that  her 
portrait  should  be  found  hanging  in  a  marvelous 
frame,  in  the  house  of  a  man  who  had  never  seen 
her,  never  even  had  her  description!  She  would 
wake  up  presently,  of  course,  and  find  herself  shak- 
ing about  in  the  train.  How  glad,  how  glad  she 
must  be  that  this  was  a  dream,  because  when  she 
did  indeed  come  to  the  Mirador,  there  would  be 
curtains  and  furniture  and  pictures  and  books,  such 
as  John  Sanbourne  had  written  about,  and  John 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES       267 

Sanbourne  himself  would  be  there  expecting  her! 
Still,  it  was  astonishing  that  the  dream  went  on  and 
on  being  so  vivid.  She  could  not  wake  up ! 

As  she  stared  at  the  eyes  of  the  portrait,  hypno- 
tized by  them,  a  stronger  breeze  slammed  the  door 
shut.  Now  she  would  surely  wake!  Noises  al- 
ways waked  one.  They  had  no  place  in  dreams. 
But  no.  The  scene  remained  the  same,  except  that 
the  handle  of  the  door  was  being  slowly  turned. 
Some  one  was  opening  it  from  the  outside.  The 
dream  was  to  go  on,  to  another  phase.  The  girl 
clasped  her  hands,  and  pressed  them  against  her 
breast.  So  she  stood  when  the  door  opened  wide, 
and  a  man,  stopped  by  the  sight  of  her,  stepped  back 
in  crossing  the  threshold. 

"Barbara!" 

The  name  sprang  to  Benin's  lips,  but  he  did  not 
utter  it. 

He  had  meant  to  go  away  in  time.  He  had  tried 
to  spare  her  this;  yet  he  had  in  his  secret  heart 
thought  that,  if  she  did  come,  it  would  be  heaven  to 
see  her.  But  now  it  was  not  so.  There  was  one 


268       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

brief  flash  of  joy  in  her  beauty;  then  horror  of  him- 
self overpowered  it.  Her  very  loveliness  seemed  to 
make  his  guilt  more  hateful — a  lifetime  of  guilt! 
He  saw  himself  as  the  murderer  of  this  girl's  youth 
and  happiness.  It  seemed  to  him  that  no  man  had 
ever  sinned  as  he  had  sinned.  He  had  crept  away 
and  hidden  in  the  dark  when  she  most  needed  him. 
Defenseless,  she  had  in  all  good  faith  married  an- 
other man.  And  because  of  his  weakness  she  had 
sinned  against  the  law.  She  had  done  a  thing 
which,  if  known,  would  ruin  her  life  in  the  world 
she  knew.  It  was  his  fault,  not  hers,  yet  she  had  suf- 
fered for  it,  and  now  she  would  suffer  more  than 
she  had  suffered  yet.  If  she  had  thought  she  loved 
the  dead  man,  from  this  moment  she  would  hate  the 
living  one,  who  had  deceived  her. 

Yet  there  was  one  hope.  Perhaps  he  was  even 
more  changed  than  he  had  supposed,  and  if  he  went 
away  instantly  without  speaking,  she  might  not  rec- 
ognize him.  He  stepped  back,  on  the  impulse,  but 
she  held  out  her  hands,  as  he  turned  to  go,  and  cried 
to  him  piteously. 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES       269 

"Oh,  if  you  are  a  dream,"  she  said,  in  a  low, 
strange  voice,  "stay !  I  beg  of  you  to  stay." 

Still  he  did  not  speak.  He  could  not,  now.  He 
waited. 

"It 's  all  a  dream,"  she  whispered.  "I  know  that. 
Coming  here — to  the  empty  house — finding  my  own 
picture — and  then — then — when  I  looked  for  John 
Sanbourne,  seeing  you — my  love!  O  God,  let  me 
never  wake  up  in  this  world.  If  this  could  only  be 
— what  they  call  death!" 

The  word  broke,  to  a  sob,  and  she  swayed  to- 
wards him,  deathly  white.  Denin  sprang  forward, 
and  caught  her  in  his  arms — his  wife — the  first  time 
he  had  ever  held  her  so.  Then,  because  he  could 
think  no  longer,  but  only  feel,  he  kissed  her  on  hair 
and  eyes  and  lips,  and  strained  her  to  him  with  every 
worshiping  name  he  had  given  her  in  his  heart  since 
their  wedding  and  parting  day. 

She  lay  so  still  against  him,  that  it  seemed  she 
must  have  fainted ;  but  her  eyes  opened,  drowned  in 
his,  as  he  kissed  her  on  the  lips.  He  saw  the  blue 
glitter,  as  if  two  sapphires  blocked  his  vision,  and 


270       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

suddenly  his  face  was  wet  with  Barbara's  tears. 
"Have  I  died?"  she  whispered.  And  the  tears  which 
were  damp  on  his  face  were  salt  on  his  lips  as  he 
whispered  back,  "No." 

He  remembered  how  he,  too,  had  once  thought 
himself  dead,  and  then  had  crept  slowly  back  to  life. 
He  had  seen  Barbara  then,  as  in  a  dream  within  a 
dream.  Now  she,  too,  was  passing  through  this  ex- 
perience. He  held  her  tight.  He  could  not  let 
her  suffer  as  he  had  suffered  when  he  came  back 
to  life!  Yet  what  could  he  do  for  her,  after  all*? 
The  sense  of  his  helplessness  was  heavy  upon  him. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said,  "Barbara,  darling !  I  never 
meant  this  to  happen.  The  first  I  heard  of  you — 
after — was  that  you  'd  married — your  cousin.  I  be- 
lieved you  loved  him.  I  was  in  a  German  hospital 
— broken  to  pieces — disfigured.  I  ought  to  have 
died,  but  somehow  I  could  n't  die.  I  had  to  live  on. 
Later,  I  escaped.  I  came  here — where  you  had 
lived.  God  knows,  all  through  I  tried  to  do  for  the 
best — your  best.  Nothing  else  mattered.  I  wrote 

that  book — for  you,  only  for  you !     And  you  know 

* 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES       271 

the  rest.  You  turned  my  hell  to  heaven.  I  was — 
almost  happy,  except  for  what  you  suffered.  But  I 
dared  not  have  you  come  here.  I  cabled.  I  was 
going  away — " 

She  pressed  her  head  back  against  his  shoulder, 
and  looked  up  at  him.  "You  were  going — "  The 
words  burst  from  her  on  a  high  note  of  sharp  re- 
proach, but  she  caught  them  back  with  a  sigh  of 
joy.  "You  didn't  go!"  she  breathed.  "God 
would  n't  have  let  you  go.  He  put  it  in  my  heart 
to  leave  England  the  day  after  I  wrote.  Ah,  we  're 
not  dreaming,  and  we  're  not  dead !  We  're  alive, 
and  we  love  each  other  better  than  all  the  world. 
I  know  now  that  you  do  love  me,  or  you  could  n't 
hold  me  and  kiss  me  so.  You  could  n't  have  made 
such  a  sacrifice — the  sacrifice  of  your  very  life  and 
self  for  me.  It  was  like  you — like  you !  The  mis- 
take was  my  fault,  not  yours.  But  I  '11  make  up  to 
you  for  it  all,  and  you  will  make  up  to  me.  We  '11 
never  part  for  an  hour  again." 

"You  don't  know  what  you  're  saying,  Barbara," 
he  reminded  her.  "John  Benin 's  dead.  We  can't 


272       WHERE  THE  PATH  BREAKS 

bring  him  back  to  life.  Too  many  interests  are  in- 
volved, yours  first  of  all,  but  others,  too.  It  would 
be  selfish  and  cruel  for  me  to  take  you  so — " 

"You  don't  take  me,"  she  said.  "I  give  myself, 
I  give  myself  to  John  Sanbourne,  as  I  gave  myself  to 
John  Denin." 

"But  we  '11  be  poor/'  he  told  her.  "John  Benin's 
money  can't  come  to  us — " 

"I  have  enough  of  my  own  now.  And  if  I  had  n't, 
I  'd  beg  with  you.  We  could  be  tramps  together." 

Denin  laughed  out  joyously,  almost  roughly,  and 
clasped  her  tight.  "It  won't  come  to  that,  my 
darling!  Perhaps  I  can  write  another  book.  Yes, 
I  can !  It  shall  be  called  'The  Honeymoon/  ' 

"Let  us  go  away  somewhere,"  Barbara  implored, 
"where  nobody  will  know  us,  and  we  can  love  each 
other  in  peace  till  we  die:  for  we  belong  to  one  an- 
other in  God's  sight  and  our  own.  Yes,  till  we  die. 
And  afterwards — afterwards !  Oh,  you  have  taught 
me  that!" 

"I  have  pledged  myself  to  go  to  Serbia,"  Denin 
said. 


BEYOND  THE  MILESTONES        273 

"Then  I'll  go  to  Serbia  with  you,  that's  all! 
What  does  it  matter  where*?" 

"And  the  world— and  Gorston  Old  Hall?"  he 
heard  himself  asking. 

"Neither  do  they  matter.  Nothing  matters  but 
you.  And  God  will  understand — because  I  am  your 
wife,  and  belong  to  no  one  else,  or  ever,  ever  did." 

"You  are  right,"  Denin  answered,  holding  her 
very  close.  "God  will  understand.  You  're  mine, 
and  I  'm  yours,  and  nothing  shall  part  us  again." 

The  portrait  with  the  smoke-blue  eyes  smiled  at 
them  from  the  door.  They  saw  only  each  other :  but 
the  eyes  in  the  picture  Denin  had  painted  seemed  to 
see  beyond  the  place  where  the  milestones  end. 


THE    END 


